BandwidthCamp

According to the Washington Post, the Federal Trade Commission is looking to have more transparency in word-of-mouth campaigns.

“Word-of-mouth marketing can take any form of peer-to-peer communication, such as a post on a Web blog, a MySpace.com page for a movie character, or the comments of a stranger on a bus.

As the practice has taken hold over the past several years, however, some advocacy groups have questioned whether marketers are using such tactics to dupe consumers into believing they are getting unbiased information”

Consequences could range from a cease-and-desist order to fines and civil penalties ranging from thousands of dollars to millions of dollars, which is interesting if it actually happens. Will the FTC walk the walk after all this talk, especially in light of the recent flog from Sony and Zipatoni. I’m going to write about the Sony and Zipatoni situation on Friday, which gives me some more time to let the situation simmer internally. However, I have posted my initial thoughts in the comment of Mitch’s blog at Twist Image.

Anyone who knows about The Sims, knows about Spore. Or so the theory goes. They were made by the same imaginative mind that is Will Wright. He takes ideas, concepts and imagination and turns them inside out. No one thought that The Sims would sell back in 2000. However, it has become the best selling PC game of all time, selling in excess of 50 million units worldwide, including 7 expansion sets, while becoming a cultural phenomenon at the same time.

That brings me to today’s post. A feature I wanted to start working on is gaming PR and how it relates to the product, but also what made that game and the PR campaign behind that game so successful or not in the case of each game. Gaming PR is interesting in retrospect because what looks good on paper may not work out in reality. Plus there are those PR shops who follow the cookie cutter method.

Like many other entertainment products, gaming provides unique campaigns that you couldn’t try or get away with in other industries. Sometimes they work and other times they don’t. But this feature is something I hope we can all learn something from and even borrow a page form their play book. I know I’ve learned a lot from looking at campaigns in other industries and this could provide useful food for thought. So the goal of this feature is to exam the games but more importantly the PR campaigns behind each game and if it’s working, especially if the publisher is using a strong online/social component.

Growing up in the mean streets of Jane & Sheppard as a child, I never took to reading. However, after moving 12 times and finally getting into junior hight, I found the joy of reading through mystery books. From that first book, I was sparked with the passion and imagination of what’s possible. Through high school and into college that passion was only fueled more in part due to my love of the Internet. It gave me access to newspapers on a global basses.

I’ve found that in the last 12 years, I’ve only increased in my search for knowledge and information online. With each passing year, I find myself not even looking in the Yellow Pages book, which I own two of at home, but using Google and YellowPages.ca to find what I need. It almost seems like part of me, on a subconscious level, is blocking out the idea of searching and researching for information the traditional way. I know there were a few times, it would have been faster in the end to just look it up in a book and not go online, but still I found myself using my Mac. What does this say about our society and the future of research? Will there be a day when we don’t have a YellowPages book anymore?

As newspapers and everything heads online. I’ve becoming more and more of a news junkie. I’ll stay up until 1 or 2am reading online new sources and searching the Internet to my hearts content. The fact that I believe that everything and anything that our imaginations can think up, is online, doesn’t help. I hope I’m not alone with having this trait among PR people.

That’s why today, I’ve taken a course of action. I shall not have more then 200 feeds in my RSS reader, NetNewsWire, and I shall keep those feeds focus on my discipline while at the same time giving me a broader look at the new global society of ours. I’m Duane Brown and I’ve a recovering news junkie.

BoingBoing is pointing out what could possible be the first homeless person to enter Second Life. I’ll admit that I don’t care much for the game and its marketing/PR results that can be actually measured are promising at best. However, the idea of setting up a homeless person in Second Life to promote what is a reality for many people in the world has me interested.

We are bombarded with so many competing messages that it’ll be interesting to see what effect, if any, this will have on the real world. Will people be talking about this or much like the real world, see it as a problem but do nothing to try and help out. The campaign is trying to target young people, which I think is a little short sighted as most of the people in Second Life seem to be adults and those of the mature variety. Who thinks this has a chance at success? I guess only time will tell.