:: Undercover Marketing - The new Invasion of Body Snatchers

Undercover Marketing or The new Invasion of the...
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Added: October 11, 2007
Undercover Marketing or The new Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Undercover marketing is also known as "astroturfing".

Astroturfing is a neologism for formal public relations campaigns in politics and advertising that seek to create the impression of being spontaneous, grassroots behavior. Hence the reference to the artificial grass AstroTurf.

The goal of such a campaign is to disguise the efforts of a political or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some political entity—a politician, political group, product, service or event. Astroturfers attempt to orchestrate the actions of apparently diverse and geographically distributed individuals, by both overt ("outreach," "awareness," etc.) and covert (disinformation) means. Astroturfing may be undertaken by anything from an individual pushing their own personal agenda through to highly organized professional groups with financial backing from large corporations, non-profits, or activist organizations.