Your Ad Here: The Cool Sell of Guerrilla Marketing

4. Buzz Agency and the Regime of Dialogue

92 > 93 “the crowd,” both online and off, in an attempt to embed structural objectives in pliable, autonomous, grassroots social flows: “[getting] in touch” (so as to exert more power) by, paradoxically, “[letting] go” (and exercising less control ), as Proctor & Gamble’s CEO puts it. Power is, in fact, foremost a project of flexibility here, and it is through that flexibility that power—the way in which conduct is conducted—can appear both democratic and authentic (or “real,” as Jonathan Ressler ironically states). Advertising has long venerated “authenticity” as an ethical ideal; zealous and conspicuous pursuit of it belies the true and polar opposite nature of the industry’s project: contrivance.4 It is for this reason that “brand evangelism,” like other forms of guerrilla marketing, self-effaces any affect of disciplinary authority so as to blend in with that which is not typically contrived. Dave Balter, who founded what has become one of the nation’s largest word-ofmouth companies, BzzAgent, characterizes his firm’s approach in ways that bear a striking resemblance to Che Guevara’s fluid, boundless, and unpredictable combat paradigm (see chap. 1): [Word-of-mouth marketing] is not scheduled. It doesn’t “come on” at any exact time. You can’t turn it on or turn it off. Sometimes it moves very fast. Sometimes it moves slowly. It’s not contained in a single medium. It takes all kinds of forms. . . . Word of mouth is often all but invisible.5 Thus, not unlike guerrilla warfare flouting the conventional rules of military engagement, “[Word-of-mouth] differs from [traditional advertising] text precisely in its lack of boundaries: it exists in the everyday real world.”6 This requires a dynamic industrial “reinvention,” in the words of Proctor & Gamble’s CMO Jim Stengel: “What we really need is a mind-set shift that will make us relevant to today’s consumers, a mind-set shift from ‘telling and selling’ to building relationships.”7 When the world’s biggest corporate client talks up reformation in this way, recipients of its $11 billion in global advertising and media money surely take note. Word-of-mouth marketing has, in fact, enjoyed one of the fastest growth rates of any marketing segment of late—from $300 million in spending in 2003 to $1.5 billion in 2008, and PQ Media expects that figure to double by 2013.8 According to some estimates, more than 85 percent of the top 1,000 marketing firms now exercise some kind of word-of-mouth strategy to “penetrate the nomarketing zones people have erected around their lives.”9 A recent survey commissioned by a London-based agency noted a similarly “dramatic rise” in the use of buzz marketing campaigns by brands in Great Britain.10 One CEO spins this growth as a “natural” progression, given larger social and technological trends: 94 > 95 MyPoints.com, an affiliated “shopping rewards” program—poked and prodded on habits, interests, and expertise. My “status level,” which would have earned me benefits like campaign invitations, could have been improved by even more active participation either contributing to the Frogpond (a usergenerated index of “hot” websites) or BzzScape (an assortment of social media “brand communities”) parts of the BzzAgent site. If I had been invited to join a campaign for, say, Mahatma jasmine and basmati rice, Ultra Palmolive dishwashing detergent, or Neutrogena Clinical Anti-Aging Skin Care rejuvenator (to name just a few of the participating clients who passed on my assistance), the site laid out precise recommendations for crafting the perfect BzzReport feedback about my word-of-mouth interactions almost as a journalism textbook might instruct: “Describe exactly what happened so we can imagine we were right there. To make your report shine, include some direct quotes. Remember when you had to answer the ‘5 W’s Questions’ in grade school? Who, What, Where, When and Why? If your report answers all those questions, there’s a great chance we’ll love it and show our appreciation accordingly.” Reflecting on the utility of panoptic discipline as a means of population management, Foucault theorizes, “[It is a] system of power . . . [that] firstly, [tries] to obtain the exercise of power at the lowest possible cost.”17 Such an economic (in the sense of efficient) approach to governance is illustrated concretely here in BzzAgent’s outsourced observational apparatus. The buzz firm’s exhaustive profiling before, during, and after campaigns is a means of...