Marketonomy

Slimy Opt-In Tactics

After upgrading my system, I just tried to view a RealPlayer video file for the first time. As opposed to Flash video players, like YouTube, or the kind I recently launched for MarketingRev, RealPlayer has a dedicated client application that sits on your computer to play RealPlayer files, and oh yeah, communicate back to Real. These pods that communicate back to the mother ship have been abused enough to make consumers leary of them, but if it's something you really want to watch, you just shut up and let them play.

So I'm forced to go through an initializing wizard with my RealPlayer. Of course, it first tries to take over all my video files by helpfully auto-checking the box "Make RealPlayer My Default Media Player", but I catch it and decline. It's the next screen that Really pisses me off. It's an opt-in screen that invites me to subscribe to a list of Spam-bot feeds with lots of FREE RealPlayer content. You can see four  feeds in the small selection box, and to my surprise, they're not automatically checked for my opt-in permission.

Okay, I'm not being hoodwinked on this screen. I'm about to click "next" when I notice there's a scroll bar on the selection box. I scroll down, and low and behold, when get below the fold there are a lot more Spam feeds, and these hidden feeds are auto-checked for opt-in permission.

Those scum sucking slimebags.

There is absolutely no question in my mind that this box was set up to purposely deceive users into opting in to email they had no intention of subscribing to. The unchecked subscription boxes are shown to users so they let down their guard, while the auto-checked boxes are hidden in a way that the vast majority of users would never notice. This kind of tactic is a tacit admission in my mind of an inability to effectively market information people actually want so they have to resort to deceptive tactics in order to fool people into subscribing. I can only imagine what their spamming tactics are like.  

Biting the Hand that Used to Feed Me

In the interest of full disclosure before delivering this post, I recently left BusinessWeek as a columnist for the online edition. The bottom line is that after 2 and a half years of writing for the small business section, our paths diverged. There's a lot of good stuff happening at BW, but unfortunately I don't think the Web site is as strong as it could be--from underlying investments in technology, to editorial focus. I wasn't too inspired to say anything about the transition until I close a new gig, but a feature I read today changed my mind.

BusinessWeek is posting on its site its editorial picks for "best of the Web".  They frame the list by saying: "with only 24 hours in the day, we have to settle on a relative few as places to work, play, and get things done online. These are our picks for the cream of the crop". Take a look at the list, flip through some of the links, and then ask yourself how this serves the BusinessWeek audience? The listings are vaguely categorized, have no description, and worst of all, as a whole they have only tangential relevance to a business reader. Lets just take a few examples:

Travel is listed under "play", not under "@work". I guess business people only travel for pleasure.

There are more links relevant to personal entertainment than business.

"Blogs" as a category contains a random sampling of high-profile mostly-technology blogs, with no breakdown into business categories, like technology, finance, management, and oh, I don't know, marketing?

What the hell is "collaboration" supposed to mean here? You've got a project management ASP, an SFA provider, an open source depository?? What is this category?

"Research" includes del.icio.us, a great social bookmark aggregator, but not, say, Edgars? Or Hoovers? Or Factiva? Or the US Patent and Trademark Office?

BusinessWeek has a great brand and a tremendous amount of goodwill in the market. Why are they having such a hard time using the Web to deliver the same quality of content they deliver through print? This list has all the hallmarks of an editor who's had a task to create a "Best Of" list sitting on his desk for 3 months, coming up for review, and slamming out an email to all hands to submit their favorite sites before 5pm. Too bad. This could have been useful.

99-Cent Salvation

Is it just me, or is this not one of the most nauseating examples of street-pimp marketing ever vomited up by a barrel-scraping network? NBC is launching dear God no not another Reality-TV-Show-But-With-A-Twist this fall, and they're trawling for media coverage and viewers by dragging dollar bills through America's trailer parks as a moving testament to Christian faith.

Here's the story: Lagging behind the other networks in the popularity of its Slit Your Wrists programming, NBC has concocted a reality show designed to appeal to God-fearing WalMart shoppers from America's heartland. In NBC's Three Wishes, an "unscripted show" premiering this fall "singer Amy Grant travels to a different town each week in an effort to fulfill the heart's desire of needy families and community groups." It sounds sweet. Really.

So NBC, looking to stir up some coverage for this faith-based initiative hires a publicity firm to cook up some media impressions. The big idea? Stalk "needy shoppers" in the checkout lines of discount retail chains and trot in on a big white horse to pick up the tab with a conspicuous stack of 1-dollar bills. Why waste time and money on creative marketing when you can just buy viewers, and through the magic of stunt media, multiply your audience?

Now I know the professional marketing purists will protest that Hey, they did their job and got national coverage, who cares if it's singularly unimaginative? My response is that the skirmish won for publicity is a battle lost for NBC's soul--ahem, I mean brand. The entire stunt paints NBC as a cynical manipulator of America's poor and needy, eschewing substantive acts of service in favor of Good Samaritan skits prepackaged for the camera. The fact they've enlisted Amy Grant, the spokesmodel of shrinkwrapped Christian consumerism, only amplifies the effect.

Don't get me wrong. I'm no voice crying out in the wilderness here. But this is a gravely disheartening view of America to me. The greasy aftertaste of this campaign is that faith and compassion in America can only be signified by randomly showering money and brand name appliances on unsuspecting poor people who look good on screen being effusively grateful. Perhaps it's a testament to the marketing company's professionalism that they so effectively segmented their subject and target audience. Notice they're distributing fistfuls of cash to people not so needy that they don't have a credit card and an eye for brands.

I guess good faith comes with a minimum requirement of purchasing power.