My gut appears to be right about there being a plant among our commenters here. Really, I’m not on a witch hunt, I just can’t stand paid shills shitting in the comment pool. The envelope please…
Adam, whose last name I know but don’t think it’s totally necessary to reveal right now, left a comment on the Flying Biscuit thread from last Wednesday. He also left a similar comment on the AJC web site about the sale of the Flying Biscuit. Both comments concluded with the phrase, “Yes, I’m a biscuit eater too! Won’t you join me?” No human being speaks in marketing slogans like that, which is what drew my attention to begin with.
Flying Biscuit, as you may have read, was purchased by Raving Brands, the company that owns Moe’s, Doc Green’s, and other restaurants.
Adam’s ISP’s domain was nyc-pix.truenorth.com. I know that because every time someone posts a comment, I receive a notification e-mail with their domain in it (that’s a Wordpress feature).
Entering truenorth.com in a web browser refered me to Interpublic, the third largest PR conglomerate in the world. Google also will tell you that Interpublic bought True North in 2001.
A Google search for Interpublic Group + Raving Brands led to this press release on Moe’s web site, which contains the following paragraph at the bottom:
Founded in 1956, GolinHarris is a full-service public relations firm, providing professional counsel and strategic communications programs to clients through 30 offices around the world. GolinHarris clients include American Legacy Foundation, McDonald’s Corporation, Toyota Motor Sales USA, Inc., Nintendo of America Inc., Texas Instruments, Sprint Corp., and the William Wrigley Jr. Co. GolinHarris is headquartered in Chicago . It is part of the Interpublic Group of Companies (NYSE: IPG). www.golinharris.com
So, Interpublic owns Golin Harris, which does the PR for Moe’s. Raving Brands owns Moe’s, so it’s reasonable to assume Interpublic does PR for all the other Raving Brands restaurants.
So, I’ve concluded that Adam was commenting as part of a viral marketing astroturfing campaign by Interpublic.
A multi-billion-dollar PR company behaving unethically… not that that’s news or anything. Just be on the lookout for plants, because they’re out there. Many (I’d venture to say most) of them are going to be more skillful at hiding the fact that they’re shilling for a company than Adam was.
As a former employee of both Interpublic and True North, I just thought you’d like to know that they were likely paid between $150 and $200 an hour for posting that commercial on your web site. I would guess that the staff person billed them for 30 minutes. You should invoice them.
For the record, I’ve never blogged or commented on behalf of a client or former client.
Wow, good detective work. How slimy. This is not so much viral marketing as astroturfing.
Do you suppose they had to pay extra for the lack of apostrophes, for that added dose of authenticity?
Good job tracking it down. At least you get the more tasteful comment spam instead of the screaming porn variety. I deleted two really disgusting ones out of our comments today and banned the commenters. We’ll see how long that last.
And don’t say you would prefer the porn ads.
I wouldn’t prefer the porn ads because they’re porn but because they’re honest. “I’ve got this and I’m selling it and I’m going to scream at you to buy it.” I prefer that to advertising trying to pass itself off as something other than what it is.
hahahahaha
BUSTED
Thanks for helping find potential plants on my site rusty. I honestly think this crap is retarded.
I have signed up for Moe’s email list twice (inadvertently the second time) with distinctive email addresses (moes @ mydomain. com).
Both of these unique email addresses now receive spam semi-regularly. I’ve sent email to Moe’s / Raving Brands to alert them that likely somebody at their ad agency / Internet Marketing company is selling their email database.
No response from them despite repeated emails and requests for clarification.
So … not surprised about their “astroturfing.”
- Disappointed Drew