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Tom Hespos responded to my post below on Media Post’s Spin Board…

quote:
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Unfortunately, some firms are exploiting the unique economies of scale of buzz marketing by creating artificially-engineered marketing campaigns that are designed to look “natural.” These campaigns fuel opposition and demonstrate the ease with which marketers can abuse buzz marketing to dupe naive individuals into believing almost anything. These campaigns aren’t buzz marketing. Rather, these campaigns are knock-offs or counterfeits to real legitimate marketing dialogs.
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I think you nailed it.

Isn’t that the problem we usually have? Scale? When you’re wielding the mass marketing hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. Positive buzz is something to be cherished, but trying to scale buzz by throwing money/incentives/free product at the scalability problem? I’d rather spend the money cultivating meaningful conversations than ones that are less than authentic.

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Here’s my response…

When we talk about scaling a marketing model on the Web I believe we need to think about Small Pieces Loosely Joined - David Weinberger’s book about how the Web fundamentally changes how we’re coming together online and, how this opportunity seems to turn off our marketing moral judgment.

While the Web is speeding up our ability to connect, scale becomes an Active Negative Principle that tears at the universal interests that hold communities together.

The challenge is to go slow not to speed up. We see the light turning yellow and we hit the marketing gas to squeeze out every last drop of ROI out of a campaign. That’s not marketing, that’s madness.

Our justification can no longer follow the mantra that because we can connect faster and respond sooner using the Web that we somehow are able to transform human relationships with such speed as well with the simple click of a mouse.

As a word of mouth marketer, my goal is to recognize and nurture the interests of individuals that buy my clients products and services. It’s well worth the time…

Technorati Tags: Tom Hespos, Human Relationships, WOMMA, David Weinberger, Small Piece Loosely Joined, artificially-engineered marketing