Laying Sod vs. Astroturfing

Wow, this discussion of astroturfing has really caused us here at WonderGroup to examine our own ethics. Let's face it, advertisers are often thought of as one step above used car salesmen. It's a shame since most of the people I know in the business are good, ethical people.

I had a fascinating conversation with our Chief Creative Officer, Matt, yesterday. The question he asked was whether Seth Godin isn't practicing a form of astroturfing himself since he's wrapping himself in an ethical banner as a way to get more consulting and speaking gigs. I don't know, maybe that's a stretch since the term astroturfing doesn't just mean dishonesty but really refers to fake grass-roots efforts, but it's an interesting perspective.

It's amazing to me how rarely we marketers take a really hard look at our ethics. For example I see a significant difference between a 40 year old man portraying himself as a 13 year old girl and fabricating posts or comments to a blog and an agency finding a 13 year old girl who is already a happy consumer of a product and offering her money to post her opinion. The first I would consider astroturing the second I would consider laying sod. Sod is real grass but required some help to get started growing. Once the sod takes hold it is self sustaining.