In a lawsuit filed Sept. 28 in Los Angeles Superior Court, Amber Duick claims she had difficulty eating, sleeping and going to work during March and April of last year after she received e-mails for five days from a fictitious man called Sebastian Bowler, from England, who said he was on the run from the law, knew her and where she lived, and was coming to her home to hide from the police. [...]

It turns out the prank was actually part of a marketing effort executed by the Los Angeles division of global marketing agency Saatchi & Saatchi, which created the campaign to promote the Toyota Matrix, a new model launched in 2008. [...]

Her attorney, Nick Tepper, said the Matrix campaign was similar to “Punk’d” a former MTV show starring Ashton Kutcher that featured celebrities being set up by their friends for elaborate pranks. Toyota’s marketers used the Internet to find people who wanted to set up friends to be “punked,” and Duick was set up by a friend of hers, he said.

Apparently it has something to do with this:

Saatchi & Saatchi’s lawyers are claiming she “opted-in” to the campaign with written consent. Her lawyer claims that “written consent” consisted agreeing to the fine print of an online personality test she took.

ABC News: Woman Sues Toyota Over ‘Terrifying’ Prank

(This is reposted from 2004)

These two quotes are by Edward Bernays, from Stuart Ewen’s PR!: a Political History of Spin

“[The term public relations] hasn’t only been misused, but people have used the name for press agents, flacks, publicity men or women, individuals who simply try to get pieces into the paper that are favorable to a client. Whereas, by my definition, a public relations person, who calls themselves [sic] that, is an applied social scientist who advises a client or employer on the social attitudes and actions to take to win the support of the publics upon whom his or her its viability depends.” (11)

“The job of a public relations counsel is to instruct a client how to take actions that ‘just interrupt… the continuity of life in some way to bring about the [media] response.” (14)

Marketing Without Tears
A quick and dirty self-study course in marketing

This guide is designed people wanting to jump start a study of the occult arts collectively known as marketing. I hope to provide a set of cognitive tools useful for citizens, consumers, occultists, reality hackers, philosophers, activists, and business people alike.

In this case I’m using the term ‘marketing’ to refer to all the various communications disciplines applied by organizations of all types for the purpose of encouraging or discouraging certain behaviors (eg, companies wish to encourage the purchase of products, governments wish to discourage revolution).

If you want to study marketing, there’s no reason to keep your head buried in books. Most of us are surrounded by marketing. We can look at the world around us and find examples nearly everywhere we look. All we need to begin a study of the material is to learn how to analyze it.

There’s no reason you can’t begin this immediately. However, the following three books will be helpful in learning to analyze the marketing sphere.

PR!: A Social History of Spin by Stuart Ewen: This could almost be titled ‘The true history and secrets of the illuminati.’ This is a history of the practice of public relations and the discipline’s impact on society. Much of it is centers around the career of Edward Bernays, who provides many insights into the workings of corporations.

Coercion: Why We Listen to What ‘They’ Say: Douglas Rushkoff’s excellent overview of applied communications diciplines.

Savage Girl: a novel by Alex Shakar. Shakar deconstructs marketing and consumer culture (with a possible Deleuzian influence) with remarkable clarity, and tells one hell of a story. Pattern Recognition pales compared to this book.

One of Shakar’s own ideas presented in the novel is ‘paradessense,’ or paradoxical essense. For example, ice cream is both innocent and erotic. Coffee promises to be both stimulating and relaxing.

Reading these books and then spending the following months and years paying close attention to the marketing around you won’t necessarily substitute for taking real courses in marketing, or spending time working at marketing firm. But it’s an excellent way for a thoughtful person without much time to glean an understanding of the forces at work around them.

Further reading:

These two books on graphic design will illuminate your perspective of the visual components marketing materials:

Non-Designer’s Design Book by Robin Williams: A crash course in the fundamentals of graphic design. Once you’ve read this book, starting paying attention to the design of everything around you, as related to the principals in this book. Traffic signs, menus, pens, packaging, everything. What principals were applied in the design of these things? How could the design be improved?

Grid Systems in Graphic Design: This is essential reading on graphic design, if you can find a copy. This works at a much more structural level than Non-Designer’s, and will give you an even better reference point when analyzing design. I posted some brief notes on this book here.

For those interested in some practical marketing advice for small business owners, I’d recommend Guerilla Marketing Handbook and How to Market a Product for Under $500, but they’re a little out of date. Newer books in the Guerrilla Marketing series are probably more up to date, and their web site is useful.

Klintron formerly served as the marketing director for a successful health care start-up, and sometimes writes about marketing on his blog Klintron’s Brain.

This article originally appeared on Key 64.

I’ve started another blog (just one more after this one, and my blog network will be complete, for now).

The Creative Activist:

Protest is broken. I gave up on protesting after the Iraq war protests. They were the biggest protests ever, held all over earth, and they accomplished nothing. I remember hearing some radio DJs on a Seattle ?alternative rock? station complaining about how protesters were blocking Interstate traffic and how protesters ?just want attention? and ?need to grow up.? I think that?s a pretty common interpretation of protest, no matter how big or for what reason.

Edward Bernays said ?The job of a public relations counsel is to instruct a client how to take actions that ?Interrupt? the continuity of life in some way to bring about the [media] response.?

The same can be said of protesters. The problem now is that protests, no matter how big don?t interrupt the continuity of life in any meaningful way anymore. They?re too common place. Even huge protests like the Iraq war protests and the RNC protests seem indistinguishable from other day to day protests to the average media consumer.

I do believe that protest should be an important part of civil life. Protesting is not dead: it just needs fixing. This blog will highlight the efforts of creative activists, working not only in protest but in any sort of activism. It will hopefully also motivate me to come up with some new ideas myself. I also hope this site will grow into a useful resource for activists, lobbyists, and political campaigners who want to try new ideas, regardless of their political alignment.

I’m sitting in front of a sound stage in the middle of a horse pasture watching robotic kids shift and rotate to electronic music. A computer thumps out crunchy, mechanical melodies over the funky beats oozing from turntables. Neon drawings float under the black light from the plywood dance floor. Off to the side of the stage, a guy sits cross-legged and meditates. I’ve been up since 6:30 in the morning, it’s 2:30 at night now, I’m freezing, and have no plans of going to bed. Fatigue has given way to fascination. I feel great.
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