Many times people see “New Marketing” and think “New Ways To Pry Into People’s Lives”. This is very wrong.

Advances in technology and techniques are great, except when they lead to more noise. With all the ways a marketer can now interact with customers/people/markets, the focus should be on accountability and transparency, not trickery.

You probably heard about this story on “undercover marketing” a few years ago. It talks about how companies plant actors and have them use their products in public to generate buzz. They sit in cafes with new computer peripherals or ask people to take pictures of them with the newest camera. All while tricking you into thinking that they’re just another anonymous person.

This may do a great job generating buzz, but what does it say about us as marketers? Do we really feel like the only way we can get someones attention is to trick them? Do we think that if people knew we were marketers they wouldn’t trust us? Maybe. And it’s things just like this that foster that notion.

“Undercover marketing” is a great idea – if no one realizes that you were undercover. Maybe it would have worked in the 70′s or 80′s, but not today. Information flows so quickly that one person can break a national news story in a matter of hours. All the goodwill and brand buzz that you create is erased by the feeling of betrayal that people feel when they find out they’ve been duped.

I think the answer is not to keep trying to find a way to barge into people lives (text message advertising), but to make the best of the opportunities we have and try to create new opportunities for meaningful, effective contact.

Maybe less really is more.