Sunday 18 July 2010

Guerrilla marketing and TATA (trying to manufacture an image?)

Wikipedia on Guerilla Marketing:
Typically, guerrilla marketing campaigns are unexpected and unconventional; potentially interactive; and consumers are targeted in unexpected places.
The Google Advertisement on a page that hosts a Petition against POSCO


My problem with this
  • The Internet remains relatively free from "manufactured consent" when you compare it with the rest of the mainstream media. 
  • We have many studio anchors posing as experts on TV who know so little about so much. A good example is how little they know about the tragedy of Kalinganagar.  
  • Mining is tearing into the lives of Indian citizens in many parts of the country. Getting news and information about the violations by mining corporates has been an uphill battle.
  • It is not strange that the mining lobby and the main-stream media  including the Tatas are bed-fellows.
  • NOW, we have PR spin doctoring creeping rapidly into the Internet and on forums where one could get some independent and factual information. It's being hijacked by "advertising".
  • Doesn't matter where you pitch a tent - the spin doctors seem to creep up right behind you - and start screaming louder than you!
  • We need to start reclaiming some spaces. We will be foolish if we let every single space that we have be hijacked by people who have a horrendous track record like TATA
  • They may have the financial muscle to buy up google ad-space and bury the truth in Page 5 of a Google search and they are not afraid of using it. 
  • I would be naive to say that I did not see it coming. I was surprised to see it on the petition and the PR site that they have put-up.
Another example - search for "Kalinganagar" on Google


For folks who are interested in the other side of the story - and don't need to be fed information from a PR spoon coated in unadulterated cow dung - I strongly suggest that you visit - http://orissaconcerns.net/

2 comments:

  1. I dont think TATA had a role in posting these Ads. Google's ADSense does it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ad space is used by sight owners. People who want to buy adverts - provide key words.

    Ads that pop up are "relevant" and one can buy these ads by bidding.
    Tata's PR machinery would have bought the words "Posco" or "Posco Agitation" or "Orissa Concerns"

    ReplyDelete