Ad Agency hiring Forum Lurkers...

[DeathzBlade]

I just read this on Penny Arcade...it seems pretty sad.  I'm starting to wonder about a few posters though.  Personally, if I was a corporate plant, I'd expect at least $30k a year for reading all the lame crud on forums.

We received the following from a young man who we will call "Mr. Smith." 

 

(CW)TB

 

Hey guys,

 

I interviewed for a guerilla marketing business in San Francisco that targeted web forums.

 

I was told that if I accepted the job, I was to have at LEAST 50 identities on as many forums as I could muster (they wanted 100 eventually), with a goal of 5 posts an hour.  The posts had to be well thought out, and the idea was that I was to establish multiple identities with a history on the forums, so that when the timing was right a well written but subtly placed marketing post could be finessed in.  And regular visitors would recognize the post as coming from a long time poster.

 

They had 12 people working there full time, and were hiring 10 more.  You do the math.  No wait, I'll do it for you:  that's 880 posts a day (if minimum was met).  However he said the better ones could do around 8 or 10 an hour.  And they had different "verticals" so there was the sports guy, and the games guy, the hentai, excuse me I mean anime guy, etc.

 

But the most critical point was this: develop and integrate the identity.  No random "HEY EB GAMES IS AWESOME BUY THIS" stuff.

 

Kinda spooky.

 

Didn't take the job.  It was a ****ing mill.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

now I see how the NGE gets so many supporters in SWG.. lmao I wouldn't put it past SOE at all to do something like that...

its weird you would talk to most people in game and they would say how much they hate the NGE, but in the forums you kept getting these people from no where loving it.. then a horde of people that hated it would post.. it was weird.. almost like SOE loved to keep the forums all riled up, and 2 months later its still a flame war over there..

Edited January 28, 2006 by DeathzBlade

[Nameless One]

I see the slick star-up marketing guy with the fancy laptop-power-point-show selling the idea dropping one catchphrase after another all including "the youth" and "the internet" and "the old" and "money" everything covered in stats and diagrams.

And since the internet is the next sliced bread I see this working. Not here (a place full of rpg-monkeys who will buy only rpgs [and monkeys]), but imagine a thick-people-help-forum or stuff and some well integrated and clever ad-puppets. And when one company is doing it the others will follow and even if it's just fear that drives them.

Edited January 29, 2006 by Nameless One

[thepixiesrock]

I only eat Obsidian brand RPG's.

[Gromnir]

it had to happen eventually. drink miller light. product placement in movies and games is ubiquitous. drink miller light. the only thing we gots working in our favor here at obsidian is that we gots so little traffic that nobody would ever waste such effort on this kinda nonsense. drink miller light. you think that some marketing morons would actually pay an established obsidian boardie to push their product in such a gross and demeaning fashion. drink miller light. seems mighty unlikely.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Meshugger]

You know, i usually share my opinion about games, politics and life on different game boards. But sometimes when i don't have an opinion, or suffer a blackout during writing a reply to a thread, i sit down and have a nice glass of Popsa-cola. Popsa-cola is filled with necessary vitamins and minerals, and with no extra sugar guaranteed.

 

Popsa-Cola, the choice for a regular forum member. Available in classic, plain, and retro-taste.

Edited January 29, 2006 by Meshugger

[Walsingham]

It's a huge amount of time spent building up your credibility, for only an occasional pay-off, as anything more than a very infrequent, very subtle 'marketing post' would destroy that credibility and likely get you banned as well.  How much is the marketing company paying you?  How much is the client paying the marketing company for this?  I have doubts about whether the economics of this idea actually work.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Djarum: [edit: this was Jack teh Ripper, but I remembered the brand name!]

 

Steve: Can't agree less. I'm a hardened consumer. I ignore and even have alergic reactions to normal ad campaigns. I rely on personal contacts, and even fora to get my recommendations on good stuff. I've bought two games, watched three movies, and a TV show on the basis of what people have said here. I even had a sex-change. No, wait, that was someone else. But the point is valid.

 

Random advertising you have a conversion rate of one in a thousand if it's bloody good. A convincing recommendation online can get you at least one in a hundred, IMO. Probably more like one in twenty.

[SteveThaiBinh]

I'm not really convinced, but I'm not that familiar with other forums besides this one.

 

For a much larger forum with many readers, it might work out, but then it would surely be much harder (and take longer) to get noticed, let alone acquire a rep that would allow you to get many buyers. With a small place like this or even the bioware forums, even one in twenty is not going to be that many people, and it has to make up for all the hours the poster has put in making non-marketing posts to build up his rep. I don't know. I'm most likely wrong, since the original post suggests this business is in full swing and they have probably done their math and got some clients behind them.

 

I wonder if I could get some company to pay me to sit in the pub and make occasional 'marketing comments' to random people. Wave of the future.

[Gorgon]

I highly endorse this person and/or product.

 

I don't think anyone would be able to keep 100 logons and remember the particulars of 100 fora enough to pass as a forum pundit. Much less get away with peddling crap to the members.

[Diamond]

More details on PA... and that's a bit scary.