February 10 - More Viral Marketing and the Price of Gary Powers

Yesterday I wrote that viral marketing seems wrong. It comes down to a matter of trust. We have an understanding of what the rules are in advertising. We know that an ad is a biased statement and we generally know who stands to gain. Even with something as potentially subtle as product placement we generally recognize it for what it is. With viral marketing, however, we often have no way of knowing. Viral marketing seeks to create a situation where the market has no idea that it is being sold to. It is fundamentally dishonest. I'd call it lame, like paying famous folks to attend your party, but it is potentially harmful.

Dissecting the Boston WMD party, though, I come to a different conclusion than most I've read or heard. First, the act itself of putting up those signs was no more than graffiti and should be treated as such. Perhaps less because not even semi-permanent defacement was involved. That the officials of Boston were not savvy enough to be aware of something that has been happening all over the world for over a year now does not make the guys who did it criminals. Some say that the guys had a responsibility to say something when they saw the panic. Now that we know it was a viral marketing campaign, I think we'll find that they were contractually bound to say nothing. I don't know this for sure, but I'd bet a Franklin it's so. Who was responsible to say something and fast was Turner, owner of the Cartoon Network that sponsored the event. I figure the $2,000,000 fine they were levied does not even come close to the costs involved. While I am generally a small government sorta guy, I hope that this is the event that causes the appropriate governmental entity to have a look at drafting legislation regarding viral marketing.

While working in the San Jose Bay area, I once saw a U.2. land at Moffet field.

We all know who Gary Powers is. Right? Well, for a re-cap, Gary Powers is the American Air Force pilot who was shot down while flying his U2 over Soviet air space. He was capture alive and held by the Soviets for almost 2 years. We got him back by swapping him for some other fellow named Vilyam Fisher, a KGB agent who the U.S. was holding. Actually the U.S. also got an American student named Fredric Pryor returned. So, Gary Powers = Vilyam Fisher - Fredric Pryor. Maybe not. Anyway, Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher was a classic cold war spy, trained for physical infiltration into the U.S. Probably a fairly good spy, too, as his capture came about when he was betrayed by his defecting assistant, not through any mis-step on his part. This happened in 1957. He is also interesting because before he was caught he was the handler for the couriers that carried the nuclear secrets betrayed by the Rosenbergs.

If you've ever wondered why we endured 50 years of cold war, why the concept of "Mutually Assured Destruction" became doctrine, then you have the Rosenbergs and a few others to thank. After W.W.II the Soviets did not have the bomb. Any significant aggression by the U.S.S.R. would have had the potential of serious ramifications for them. However, Klaus Fuchs and David Greenglass (Ethel Rosenberg's brother) of Los Alamos leaked construction details to Ethel and Julius. Folks who should, wondered why the U.S.S.R. was able to develop their own nuclear weapons so quickly and this was found to be why. The U.S.S.R., once on an equal footing with the U.S., felt more free to promote communism in the world, again.

The U.S. now had a powerful enemy that they needed to keep track of and began developing some of the most interesting weapons and systems we have ever seen. To this day, the U2 remains one of the most advanced airframes in existence and it still sees service, though not military. Anyway, as amazing as the U2 was, it still needed a pilot. So, on that fateful day, May 1, 1960, Gary Powers boarded his airplane at Incirlik Air Force Base in Turkey and took off for a reconnaissance mission over the U.S.S.R.