Hard Sell Spies

Mea culpa: I'm a marketing guy. I flip through magazines looking for great ads, download films from the BMW site (even if I don't own a BMW) and knowingly subscribe to a select group of e-zines that are thinly-veiled advertisements for stuff that interests me. I even admit to watching an occasional television commercial, almost as a kind of penance for watching a stale movie at no charge on one of the networks. You might think I'd be excited about hip new trends like viral marketing, whether word of mouth or browser-powered. And I was excited -- before it crossed the line.

A couple of months back, Rob Walker of The New York Times reported ('Hidden in Plain Sight Persuaders', Dec. 5) on a marketing company that arranged for 2000 'agents' to infiltrate grocery stores and backyard cookouts to sing the praises of one brand of sausage. These were not uniformed representatives of the sausage company. According to Walker, they were people already on the guest list or -- have a seat and move all glassware a safe distance from your hand -- friends and family members. The agents had been briefed by a word-of-mouth specialty marketing company on how to talk up the product, hand out coupons and advise which stores carried the product.

Now, I can accept a lot of different forms of promotion. I'm OK with product placement, as when James Bond uses Olin skis or drives Aston-Martin automobiles, or with interstitials (which sound cooler than ads, even if they are, basically, ads) on news sites that I frequent. There's a kind of sport, or implied wink, between the consumer and the seller that doesn't leave me feeling all cheap and used. There are rules, and at some level I know that those brand names on the silver screen aren't there by chance. With these types of advertising, however, you know you can always step off to the sidelines, join friends or family and have a kind of respite from the commercial assault.

Not so with the sausage agents, or models hired to strike up a chat about the newest cell phone. Your aunt now has a hidden agenda. Instead of Christmas cards, it could be sausage coupons. Meanwhile, at the cafe, that attractive young woman with the very cool cell phone struck up a conversation with you -- for the wrong reason. It's the cell phone hard sell. Unless, of course, ace technophile that you are, you swooned over the very cool phone and noticed only much later who was holding it.

What does this mean for the great democracy of the Internet? Spam may be the least of our worries. Look for personal email, manipulated web logs, independent-ish product reviews and other insidious breaches of our trust. It's an invasion.

Fortunately, there's an easy solution to this ethical dilemma: Require a disclaimer. Much as the pharmaceutical companies are required to display in their ads the list of known side effects (nausea, weight gain, extra chest hair, death, drowsiness), agents ought to be required to identify themselves. After that, anything's fair game. And I would be happy to be a role model of compliance.

"Hi, I'm Jon. I was paid to wear this cologne, Flirtonique, which complements my timeless personal style and unleashes my masculinity. Oh and I have a limited number of Flirtonique coupons with me. Can I buy you a drink?"