Josh Hallett at Marketing Profs wonders why Target isn’t held to the same ethical standards as, say, Wal-Mart. Evidently Target (through an agency) broke one of the golden rules of word-of-mouth marketing: they told some of their WOMMers not to let their Facebook buddies know who they were. Odd that we haven’t heard much about this here at Target HQ in Minneapolis (except here).

I maintain that word-of-mouth-marketing is necessary for only corporations or products that will not endure naturally. All WOMM seems to do is cheapen relationships, even the one you have with a stranger in line at a store.

Of course, my main gripe is with corporations that encourage kids to market for them. Isn’t rewarding kids by having them schill your product in emails, on message boards, and in chatrooms just teaching them that what you convey in your communications doesn’t really matter? As long as you get something out of it?

From MiceChat:

Please do me a favor and click the following links. you dont have to surf them just click them so i get points PLEASE and Thank you. and does any one know of any others?

Sounds like a real brand enthusiast! I mean, ambassador!

This entry was posted on Friday, November 30, 2007 at 2:40 pm and is filed under The Problem, How Marketers Think. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.