A blog appears on the internet, written by a man named Håkan Nordkvist who claims to have traveled to the future and that he has proof. Later, a video surfaces. Apparently, this man crawled under his sink and into the future where he met himself and took a mobile phone video of the event. The video is viewed thousands of times and debated by many. The problem? The entire matter was conceived by AMF Pensions to market to a “younger” generation. This video is part of a portfolio of “guerrilla” marketing campaigns propagated by Forsman & Bodenfors. The apparent logic of the marketing campaign is that you should give your money to people who are willing to deceive and lie to you for a good laugh. The problem with this sort of campaign is that not everyone finds out that the matter is a hoax; more disinformation is created in an already incredibly noisy environment. This kind of marketing is simply unethical and is the worst kind of propaganda because it is in no way concerned with the truth or even willing to make a case, based on evidence, for the value of the product. It’s bullshit is what it is.
There are lots of products out there that might accomplish some silly task like “stress relief” but whose real and primary purpose is humor. The Tiddy Bear more than applies here, it’s actually best in show. But I don’t want to ruin the joke for you, so watch the video and then I’ll say my piece.
According to most economists we humans really are extremely rational creatures—hyperrational really, since when we make errors in judgement, such as failing to save enough for retirement, we’re really saving enough to satisfy our expected utility. But as the Economist succintly put it, “Economists make sense of the world by assuming that people know what they want. Advertisers assume that they do not. Who is right?” Good question. And the answer is: the advertisers.
Whew! Just got done cleaning out all the comment spam. I let it go on for WAY too long. While doing it though, I noticed two things about the comments. One, some of them were quite clever and almost tricked me out of deleting them. Two, one of the them was from Citibank! I get that scummy pharma dealers and online casinos have to resort to these insidious tactics, but Citibank!?
Read more…
