A woman who claims she does “stealth marketing” for BlackBerry seems to have deflated the whole campaign by blabbing to the New York Daily News about her nightlife related marketing.

26-year-old Brooklynite Julia Royter, described by the NYDN as a “pretty girl,” says she’s part of a “covert marketing campaign” at BlackBerry to entice young men into handling and hopefully purchasing the smartphones. Royter says the company devised the honey trap wherein Royter or, presumably, some other young women, insinuate they want to date or make out with you by getting you to put your number in their BlackBerrys. But making out isn’t really what they want:

“I was with a bunch of hot girls and we would just walk into bars, whip out our BlackBerries and try to get guys to look at them by flirting,” says Royter. “We’d say, ‘Put your number in my phone and I’ll totally call you. We’ll go out on a date!’ But we just wanted them to try the BlackBerry. I definitely didn’t call anyone.”

Luckily for Royter, she’s able to completely separate her job from any related ethical concerns:

“This is an opportunity to play a flirtatious character,” she says. “It’s all pretty evil. You’ve got to be careful these days. You never know who is trying to sell you something.”

What do you think? Does this seem like a great innovation or does it make you never ever want to buy a BlackBerry because it’s mean and sexist and outright lying?

[via Gawker]

That girl you met last night? Totally trying to sell you something is a post from: The Inquisitr

The NFL has quickly put the kibbosh on a guerilla marketing campaign engineered by rum-maker Captain Morgan.

Ads in which people engineer a brilliant and ballsy solution to a problem or challenge, then striking the “foot up on a barrel” signature Captain Morgan pose, are fairly well known in the US. Philadelphia Eagles player Brent Celek assumed the pose after a touchdown this weekend, during a nationally broadcast game. Celek was later penalized 15 yards for “demonstrating,” and the league has banned the gesture from games as a form of “ambush marketing.”

While the players involved denied knowledge of a campaign by Captain Morgan to sneak the pose into games, it was likely part of an initiative by Captain Morgan to get the image onto TV screens across the country. Although clearly a boon to Captain Morgan rum sales, the plan was also to get money to a charity that assists former players who have fallen on hard times:

The campaign was set to be unveiled next week and was fairly simple: For every time a player was caught on camera striking the “Captain Morgan” during a regular season game, $10,000 would be donated to Gridiron Greats. For each instance in the playoffs, the donation would elevate to $25,000. And for instances in the Super Bowl, the bounty was slated to hit $100,000 per pose.

Captain Morgan has stated that they’re not done with the Gridiron Greats initiative and plan to re-think the campaign in a way that doesn’t violate NFL guidelines.

[Yahoo]

NFL bans Captain Morgan “ambush marketing” is a post from: The Inquisitr

While a lot of attention surrounding the new guidelines being issued by the FTC is regarding bloggers there is also another who section of advertisers that is going to get hit hard by these new guidelines. Ignoring the fact for now that newspapers are being given a clear path to maintain their current status quo of self-regulation guerilla marketers are going to have a very hard time doing business under these guidelines.

For those not familiar with the term guerilla marketing it is a type of marketing where for example sake you are sitting at the bar having a nice cold beer and some-one you don’t know sits down beside you and you both start talking about brands of beer and why you like certain ones. This person beside you starts really talking up the brand of beer, one you’ve probably never tried because it’s new, their are drinking and then offers to buy you one, or two.

That is what is commonly referred to as guerilla marketing.

To the FTC this type of advertising would require full disclosure

A young man signs up to be part of a “street team” program in which points
are awarded each time a team member talks to his or her friends about a particular
advertiser’s products. Team members can then exchange their points for prizes, such as
concert tickets or electronics. These incentives would materially affect the weight or
credibility of the team member’s endorsements. They should be clearly and
conspicuously disclosed, and the advertiser should take steps to ensure that these
disclosures are being provided.

(page 81)

As I said earlier the only medium not covered by any of these new guidelines is the traditional print media – anyone else … well you’re fair game.

FTC guidelines take aim at guerilla marketing as well is a post from: The Inquisitr