Sells Like Teen Spirit

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer, October 31, 2005

"There's something truly creepy about the notion of marketers manipulating what ordinary people say to one another," writes Jeff Gelles. "As a parent, I'm especially concerned when the targets are teenagers like my daughters - which is why I decided to take a look inside Tremor," a Procter & Gamble Web site that has enlisted a quarter-million teenagers as "word-of-mouth" marketers. Tremor uses coupons, discounts, free downloads and product samples combined with "the usual online smarminess" to hook kids into spreading the word about their clients' products. [from PRWatch.org]