Anti-Regulation:Grassroots Advertising On The Internet

With the proliferation of outlets of interaction and discussion on the Internet, corporations and mainstream media have recognized the potential advantages to the openness and freedom that exists among these outlets. According to an article in The Economist on October 6, 2007, “$24 billion is spent on internet advertising.”¹ Paralleling buzz advertising and word-of-mouth advertising in a traditional face-to-face realm, advertisers have brought grassroots or amateur, advertising to the web (see “Grassroots Marketing: An Overview” for a complete definition of the term). With the transition, some legal questions arise.

Moreover, a professional advertising company, the DCI Group Inc., recently was hired by Exxon Mobil to create a cartoon video that bashed Al Gore and his environmental sustainability incentive in an attempt to hinder his efforts and beliefs while engaging users with an amateur appeal .² The video was posted on YouTube, the video networking site, and posed as work created by an individual who was a 29-year-old amateur producer from California. ² This type of marketing has, in some cases, been interpreted as deception, and a call for regulation has been proposed. I plan to discuss how democracy comes into the picture of this type of regulation, what a regulation on grassroots marketing could impose, and also some benefits to this type of advertising.

Grassroots advertising dates far back to traditional, face-to-face interaction between corporations and consumers. In an article from the Columbia Law Review dated in 1968, ‘grassroots’ lobbying (or marketing) was discussed as a convention: “This technique of influencing the legislature by molding a favorable body of public opinion, which has come to be known as ‘grassroots’ or ‘indirect’ lobbying to distinguish it from traditional direct lobbying activities, is not new.”³

This well-established marketing tactic may, in some areas, crossover some of the boundaries set by the ICC, however, my argument is that this does not mean that all grassroots advertising online should be eliminated only better understanding of its existence should be applied. And, online sites already do understand some of the tactics employed by websites, and do already regulate grassroots marketing to some degree. For example, even on WordPress, blog posting spam in the form of ‘comment advertising’ is picked up electronically and it is distinguished from the rest of one’s blog comments. Ultimately, the user has the ability to chose if they would like to view the posting or not, in turn, exposing themselves to the advertisement. So, maybe it is up to the websites to pick-up on computer generated advertising, which often acts like spam because of its repetition of content and abundance. Distinguishing this spam from other posting is necessary and website should present the opportunity to the viewers to delete it if they would like. However, this form of computer generated, unspecific, grassroots attempts, aren’t necessarily what most people find deceiving about grassroots ads because most people can recognize spam when they see it probably because they have seen it elsewhere, or recognize the format of spam. Therefore, the effectiveness of this type of grassroots attempt may be diminished. The deception comes in forms like the DCI Group Inc.’s ad mentioned above.

Aside from the power of the First Amendment, and the lack of serious regulation online as supporting claims for a deregulated environment when it comes to grassroots marketing, it is a substantial claim that the approach to grassroots marketing caters to a specific type of person. Renee Dee wrote in the article, “The Buzz on Buzz,” from the Harvard Business Review, that the concept of grassroots marketing is a “strategy that relies on earlier adopters who attempt to convert other people—to turn them into users too.”⁴ So, if we have a more specific person within the targeted online community, grassroots marketing’s attempt is to cater to one types of individual, who may be susceptible to the advertisement prior to the add because of previous interest, or their type of personality—is this not what the basis of advertising is anyway?

A second claim is because grassroots tactics cater to communities online, it goes further in representing successful psychographics of that community⁵—something that most advertising outside the new media realm falls short of (generally, it caters to demographics with assumed psychographic distinctions). In short, I would say that grassroots marketing actively pursues specific audiences and helps to represent those audiences in the mainstream. According to Jenkins (2006), “[Online] participation is more open-minded, less under control of media producers and more under the control of media consumers” (p. 137.”).⁶ This means that as consumers chose which ads to give attention, despite whether the ad is deceptive or not, they are ultimately choosing their interest, in turn, deciding which type of products, politicians, etc. should be represented in the mainstream.

Ultimately, it can be argued that grassroots marketing brings a dichotomy of benefits, both to the consumer and to the producer. Because they can cater more specifically to a psychographic audience and spam, which universally posts in random, often untargeted communities is already regulated and recognized; advertisers find the community that will be most susceptible in liking their product before the ad was in place, in turn, eliminating the reasoning for a regulated environment on the basis of deception. By finding this psychographic, consumers also benefit because their likes and interests, which may have not been exploited previous to this type of marketing, may now be heard.

References:

1.The Economist. London: Oct. 6, 2007. Vol. 385, Iss. 8549; p.86

2.Lim, Joon S. & Ki, Eyun-Jung.(2007). Resistance to ethically suspicious video spoof on YouTube: a test of inoculation theory. [Electronic Version] Public Relations Conference. 283-293.

3.Cooper, George. (1968). The tax treatment of business grassroots lobbying: Defining and attaining the public policy objectives. Columbia Law Review [Electronic Version]. 68 (5).

4. Dye, Renee. (Nov/Dec 2000). The buzz on buzz. Harvard Business Review. [Electronic version] 78 (6).

5.Gilmor, Dan.(2006). We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media Inc.

6.Jenkins, H. (2006). Quentin Tarintino’s Star Wars? Grassroots creativity meets the media industry. New York, New York: New York University Press, pp. 131-169.