Not too long ago I was working for a local company that was in the business of selling their product online. They were a small company, but also the leader in their industry. I learned a few things about online business while working there, and experienced just how competitive it can be.
Not everything behind internet marketing is pretty, and there is a real ugly side that can be seen if you look close enough. Some of the less than glamorous tactics used by this company to beat out their competition are probably now considered illegal because of the new guidelines imposed by the FTC.
Without going into too much detail, the company I worked for engaged in the practice of astroturfing, also known as sock-puppeting. Astroturfing, as defined by Wikipedia, is “an English-language euphemism referring to political, advertising, or public relations campaigns that are formally planned by an organization, but designed to mask its origins to create the impression of being spontaneous, popular “grassroots” behavior.” The goal behind astroturfing is to deceive others by speaking positive about yourself while masking your true identity. It may not have been 100% illegal back then, but it certainly was unethical.
This company engaged in astroturfing by posting customer reviews about themselves on other sites and also by creating numerous other independent websites that continued this type of deception even futher.
It is relatively easy to get away with astroturfing on the internet, and usually only the most inquisitive of people can uncover the operations of a sock-puppeter. But don’t take that as an endorsement to go ahead with something like this, because not only is it illegal and unethical, it makes a bold statement about your business that no amount of spin can cover up.
If you have to be deceptive about your business, then something’s wrong with your product.
Think about that for a minute. If you have to resort to deceptive tactics in order to promote your business or to make sales, then obviously your product or service is a sham. Even if nothing is wrong with your product, taking steps down an unethical path to market it makes your product’s value null and void.
Do you think the value of a company’s product is affected by the marketing practices used to promote it? And if a company is caught marketing through deception, can they recover?