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A good place to see this is in the comments section of website articles about the evils of Big Pharma. Inevitably, including here on your site, you’ll find pro-Pharma responses, clearly written by those hired to support the industry. So obvious…

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Substantively, it’s essentially the same, and the procedure is tricky – I had to read it 3 times, and I’m an advertising lawyer. Other than that nit, great post. I enjoyed it.

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Here’s how Maclean’s magazine described one of these: “Valerie Knight, who has worked for Guergis for three and a half years in her Alliston constituency office, says it never crossed her mind to disclose their affiliation when she sent a letter to the editor on March 14. The letter was written in response to the Maclean’s article called “Power couple, unplugged,” about Guergis and her husband, former MP Rahim Jaffer, who have been scandal-plagued lately.”

This ‘power couple’ is vying for the Most Pathetically Slimy Political Couple Award and is clearly in first place so far.

By the way, Guergis is of course claiming that she was utterly unaware that her two staffers were coincidentally writing letters to the media in praise of their beleaguered boss.

Makes you wonder just how dumb can these people possibly be?

Astroturfing, sock puppetry, whatever we call it – is alive and well in Canadian politics.

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Hi Patrick and thanks so much for your astute comments. I agree – those ‘underhanded lengths’ are amazing yet, sadly, not surprising. If a marketing scam works, and if it will make money/counter a bad reputation/make shareholders happy, and if business thinks there’s a pretty good chance of getting away with it, there are many out there who’ll stop at almost nothing to sell that Brooklyn Bridge to those willing to buy.

The New York case is important, I think, because perhaps it does signify a shift in our willingess to tolerate this kind of marketing fraud.
cheers,
C.

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Thanks for an excellent expository piece. It, and the simple messages it contains, are long, long overdue. I’ve worked in PR and advertising for nearly 40 years and remain perpetually amazed at the underhanded lengths some companies will go to to push their products or services. It’s time someone went to jail for this crap and I hope you put a little grease on the slide.

I wish I knew precisely how gullible the public is. Lately, it seems to know no bounds. “Dollars for Gold” is a typical scam that really frosts my cookies. It’s easy to say that anyone who responds to this, at best, unscrupulous offer is an “innocent victim” of a fraud.

Personally, I think that anyone who responds to a fast-talking Aussie shill by putting their unwanted gold in a plastic bag and mailing it off to God knows where to be evaluated by God knows who, and then complain loudly and bitterly when they get a cheque for $4.83 by return mail should be examined by a psychiatrist to see precisely how much their ability to think rationally has been diminished.

Are these “Brooklyn Bridge” marketers getting smarter, or are we just “dumbing down” in leaps and bounds? The future just got a little bit more frightening for every voice of reason.

Cheers,

Patrick

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