"Buzz Marketing" Blues

These two reports, sent via the US-based Organic Consumers Association (OCA), reports of a disturbing trend among big conglomerates like Procter and Gamble to market their wares to teenagers. Known as "buzz marketing", companies like P&G encourage teenagers - or pay them - to get their friends to buy their products marketed to teenagers.

A group called Commercial Alert filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission against P&G and others engaging in these practices, believing them unethical.

Chesterton - quoted in a 1998 edition of the old St. Catherine's Review of Canada - called advertising a "megaphone of mere mercantile self-satisfaction." So such tactics as "buzz marketing" must be nipped in the bud before it does any further damage to the already damaged American teen culture.

The link to the OCA report has a link to Commercial Alert for any who wish to see the original press release.