Daddy, make a picture

There comes a time in every marketing-bot’s career when they have to look at themselves in the mirror and ask ‘can I even remember a time when I had a soul?’

This week’s New York Times Magazine features the latest and greatest in the marketing echo chamber… buzz marketing.

For those who don’t know, here’s the skinny… TV commercials have died an ugly and overdue death at the hands of TiVo. Advertisements as we know them fail to reach their targets. People in our brand new pomo universe are hip to the deal - they know they are being sold at and tune the selling out. What’s left? Simple - figure out a way to worm yourself into the day to day conversations that go on between family, friends and cow orkers.

Marketing is now filling the empty hole in the public discourse that used to be filled with notions like democracy, religion, values, neighbors talking to neighbors, raising children, and blah blah blah throughout history.

Conversation - public discourse - is at the heart of civilization. We are what and who we are because we can express ourselves to each other.

For some, the bzzzagents in the story, the best they can do is to chat up their neighbors about their sausages so they can feel important and buzz-worthy. And of course at the end of it there’s some marketing boy-genius-of-the-moment getting paid for all of this.

Now here’s where this all feels weird and makes my tummy hurt. Last week I said I bought my son a $29 shortwave radio at Radio Shack (aka Shit Shack for those who grew up hanging out with hams). I said it was a great radio for the price and I’m pretty sure at least two of my faithful readers may have gone out and bought the radio themselves.

So…. does this make me a bzzzagent? And does the whole concept of buzz marketing make every single one of these conversations suspect? Of course it doesn’t and it didn’t and what’s even richer is that Radio Shack is of course probably way to stupid to figure out that a $29 product that’s sitting right there on their shelf would be a great thing to market to nostaligic dads for dad’s day… but that’s another client I don’t have.

Anyway, this whole arguement is being covered far more intelligently over here at gapingvoid.

And yes, this is the start of a new category for me. I’ve decided to shut up about it and start talking about what I do all day. So there.