Stealth marketing

I know it's self-referential for bloggers to refer to news related to blogging, but I can't resist this piece from Guardian Online: companies such as Ford and Olympus are searching blogs as a way of monitoring brand appeal. Olympus, for example, send new product details to important bloggers to gauge opinion ahead of launch.

This reminds me that last year, Ford paid British novelist Carole Matthews to feature the Ford Fiesta prominently in her next two novels.

This also reminds me of Magda in William Gibson's Pattern Recognition, employed by marketers to spread the word about brands in clubs and bars, disguised as a member of the public.

Will such "surreptitious" marketing tactics work in the blogging world, whereby companies court and seduce influential bloggers with new products to extoll online?

Of course!

Other links today:
Koko the gorilla calls for the dentist
Turkmenistan leader orders palace of ice to be built in the desert