Nomi+Leasure

"The Hidden (in Plain Sight) Persuades" Rob Walker, New York Times

This eleven page article written for the New York Times in 2004 addresses the growing trend of guerilla marketing, especially focusing on street teams and word of mouth buzz campaigns. The article opens with a vivid description of the previous summer's Fourth of July BBQs and the prevalance of Al Fresco chicken sausage across the country. The author explains how the individuals that brought the sausage, talked about the sausage, cooked the sausage and even asked their grocery stores to stock up on the sausage before the weekend were hired agents for BzzAgents, a three year old company operating out of Boston. The company recruits agents to spread word of the mouth feedback about a variety of products they are able to test. This includes books, beauty products, food items and many others. The agents talk up the products to their friends and acquaintances, give coupons to people and some times get very creative with their marketing. One agent confessed to talking with her grocery store's management about why there was no Al Fresco chicken sausage available at the store and even took some to a friend's house for dinner. The need for this type of marketing in today's competitive advertising environment is based on the psychological fact that conversations in every day life are more powerful than the messages coming from the media. **This peer-to-peer level of communication leads to better consumer seduction for just about anything.**

The article mainly focused on the the people working as the agents. Many word of mouth companies or campaigns seek out the trendsetters or influencers among a community. Some companies have even gone so far as to conduct psychological research to isolate the characteristics that make some folks more influential than others. Why would people want to talk up random products? Well that is based on psychological reasoning too. People have a desire to feel influential, it feels good. For some it gives them a feeling of having an upper hand knowing all about something that everyone else has yet to discover. For others, it gives them something to talk about. They have a resume of items that they become knowledgeable about and spread the word to people, increasing their communication with others. In several cases, hired Buzz Agents were more influential in building a brand than people were actual fans of that product, restaurant, etc. The articles concludes by saying that doesn't matter if you actually know what you're talking about so long as you're willing to talk a lot and to a lot of people.

+ You have made an appropriate choice of reading matter that relates in some way to your research project. Well chosen article and well-written work here. + Your precis offers a specific summary of the key arguments, information and ideas. - You have followed the guidelines about writing a precis. In writing a precis, you should avoid phrases like "The article said..." and "The article concludes..." + The quality of the writing is perfect with no spelling, usage or grammatical errors + Your precis is about 250 - 400 words in length.
 * Criteria for Evaluation**

Please include a citation in APA format. GRADE: A