Sock Puppets Keep It Shill on YouTube
"I'm so in love with this one-of-a-kind soda," writes Kyle Pafrath in an Onion spoof entitled "I'd Love This Product Even If I Weren't a Stealth Marketer." "I want to shout its product name from the rooftops of a lower-to-middle-class neighborhood! Preferably one with an elementary school nearby, where consumers are still young enough that their brand loyalty is not yet fully established. I know it sounds crazy, maybe even a little scary, but honestly, True Blue is just that good." "In stealth-marketing parlance," he continues dryly, "this is what is known as 'roach baiting,' but I prefer to call it 'the least I can do.'" The technique goes by plenty of other names, all of them ugly. Viral marketing, astroturfing, sock puppetry. Some call it the future of advertising. The European Union, meanwhile, plans to ban it in 2008....
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