when individuals that are supposidly spontaneously generating this kind of content are outed as being paid advertisers it does seem to cancel out at least a little bit of whatever positive effects are generated for such a campaign. if the marketing team puts together the content so well that the average user is unable to descern it from genuine user generated content maybe they deserve some small measure of sucess that a good advertising compaign brings.

is tuning in to youtube for ads really all that abhorant though? superbowl ads are a very clear cut example of advertising that transcends the product it is selling to become an example of authentically entertaining media in its own right. i feel like simlar arguments were made about product placement in movies and television in the past and while i do feel that those techniques changed the traditional advertising pardigims in ways not previously forseen i don't feel like they have significantly sculpted our culture as a whole.

I wrote a play about this. Sadly, no one showed up to see it.

If only I had spent my energy developing a marketing campaign around it...

@tetracycloide:

Tuning in to YouTube to watch an entertaining ad is one thing, I think the worry that's being pointed out is when that advertising is slipped past your mental filters. If I sit down and watch an entertaining ad, I'm prepared to be a little skeptical - I know I'm being pitched to. I'm not sure that same wall of skepticism is there when somebody sends a youtube link my way or I'm unaware that it's advertising of a sort. Slipping these things things to the mind without having them get a little analysis of the agenda behind them - that's the worry.

@abztrakt: perhaps nothing should slip into your mind without getting a little analysis of the agenda behind it?

i'm also going to reiterate that any advertisment that is so carefully constructed that it simultaniously does not look or feel like an add and is actually succesful at moving product should be reward with success.

@tetracycloide: I think part of what makes it worrisome for me is the knowledge that advertising companies are actively trying to trick me into thinking a certain way about the product.

I mean, yeah, I know, and have always known that that's what they were trying to do. Duh: mind control and advertising are the same thing. But I felt like we'd achieved a kind of equilibrium--the advertisers would do whatever they could to get me to believe that owning a Cadillac is like having a sexy mistress, but they would only do it in the designated areas.

Slipping it into viral YouTube videos just seems so unsportsmanlike.

@tetracycloide: Any ad? Even ads for really horrible things--like defective pharmaceuticals?

I actually wonder if people who are able to successfully move product that turns out to be poisonous aren't morally complicit in whatever deaths result from its usage.

@braak: i don't think the problem with defective pharmacuticals lies with the advertising that backs them. the product itself, in that case, is the problem.

@tetracycloide: Well, yes. Maybe. And this is just idle musing, but let's say you, as an advertiser, knew that your product was defective, or poisonous in some way, but chose to advertise it anyway?

If the fundamental goal of advertising is actually to rob people of volition when it comes to purchasing a product--the actions you take as an advertiser as specifically meant to eliminate the choice that the consumer has in selecting a non-poisonous product over a poisonous one.

I feel like there's moral complicity there.

Or let's say you work for Pfizer now, and know that they, apparently, have no compunction about obscuring studies, tossing out evidence, and doing all manner of things that might reveal the product as harmful. And your job is to positively re-spin Pfizer's reputation, so that more people will buy their products again?

If the defective products are the problem, then the suspicion that people have about Pfizer is a good thing. But if it's your job to eliminate that suspicion, why aren't you part of the problem?

@braak: Well if there was prior knowledge of the poisonous or defective nature of the product then yes, of course they're morally complicite in the complications that selling said product would create. If someone worked for pfizer and they actually thought that pfizer was trying to work up some good press so they could abuse a position of trust and exploit consumers with obscuring facts but continued to work on building their reputation then, yes, they would be part of the problem.

I don't really see the fundamental goal of advertising being to rob consumers of the ability to control their own choices. I always saw the fundamental goal of advertising as giving the consumer pause over a purchasing decision they would not normally considered by highlinghting aspects of the product they had not yet pondered.

On some level seeing beer or cars in ads next to attractive people helps associate them with attractivness but those only go so far as to influence the consumers taste. As long as adds limit themselves to trying to make a product more tasteful, which is relative anyway, I don't see any problem. Once they enter the relm of influncing the distribution of actual facts about the consequences of using a product I'd say that's ceases to be advertisment and becomes propaganda.

Advertising sweatshop = *jibblyjibbly*
Sadly, I haven't come up with a way to force the system into one of honesty. Exaggeration of the superiority of your product over others is one thing. But the increasing number of ads that leave not even really sure what was being advertised or what the product is supposed to do, is getting irritating. And people payed (yes, usually pittance) to talk up a product, or slip it into a video they have otherwise made anyway - that starts to get eery to me. Mostly, what worries me about it is that it begins to undermine my trust in people's actual opinions. Before long, I'll start having to wonder if someone actually feels the stated way, or actually even owns the thing in question of their own accord, or if they got some cash to talk it up. Product placement is always going to happen, but it doesn't belong in a place I expect to get real advice, or where I expect to see someone's authentic, independent creativity.

@tetracycloide: Well, welcome to the world of propaganda. There seems to be some sort of naive idea that though corporations may be ruthless in placing products in movies/TV, using bright colors and catchy music in their commercials or raping American capitalism through the financing of our political system, they aren't actually ruthless from a human perspective - when you get down to it, they have a cute little softly beating heart and they wouldn't dare sell us products that were unsafe or, at best, didn't live up to their claims. The point, of course, is that we know from case after case, that this is precisely the dealio.

No one ('cept a very few - Nader, for one) and certainly not the government (which, in this case, is essentially the same thing as the corporations) cares enough or has the energy to do anything about it.

See: Chevy Corvair, Ford Pinto, Warner-Lambert's off-label marketing of Neurontin, GlaxoSmithKline and Paxil, Merck's Vioxx, maybe, oh I don't know, the tobacco industry? There's thousands more ... it's the history of corporate America.

I haven't worked for any of the really nasty companies, but I have worked for or otherwise experienced enough to know that the advertisers and the people actually knowledgable about the product rarely meet. Don't blame the marketing people for what goes wrong with the product...they're often in completely different buildings, even states...or even hired form other companies. They're spoon fed some data, demographics, and ideas and told to create a campaign. If they were to stop more than one second to ask "well, how do I know I'm not creating a campaign for a toxic product", they'd be told, essentially, "trust me or get another job".

Companies that big weave a nasty web where many people are a little bit guilty. But some people honestly have no clue what's going on beyond their own desk, and that's how they keep their job.