Plant
Plant
A SECRET ALLY. A trusted and confidential ally - usually disguised or undisclosed to the opponent - who is placed by a player to seed or sense information and movements in a marketplace.
Plant
Plant: PT
Definition
A SECRET ALLY. A trusted and confidential ally - usually disguised or undisclosed to the opponent - who is placed by a player to seed or sense information and movements in a marketplace.
Get Google: Are Microsoft and Burson Out of Bounds?
September 24, 2007
There's Nothing New in This Game -- Just Ask HP, Ketchum and Bill Belichick
Agentry is fundamental to running plays. Savvy playmakers -- like, oh, Microsoft -- know that an agenda is sometimes better driven by someone else than driving it directly.
Such is the case in the revelation that the venerable PR consultancy Burson-Marsteller is doing Microsoft's bidding in its attempts to take Google off its game and, specifically, to derail its rival's purchase of DoubleClick.
To take its case into the Court of Public Opinion, Redmond strategists are apparently keen for surrogates to carry their water. According to The Playmaker's Table, they have three options: Partner , Proxy and Plant .
But which third party to tap is all a question of credibility vs. control. Partners provide the credibility but are notoriously tough to keep on-message. Proxies are only marginally credible surrogates but easier to direct. And Plants do anything a player wants, hoping all the while to avoid detection (think HP).
What may be happening in the case of the Microsoft/Burson engagement is an example of The Sliding Surrogate -- a third party that's pledged to operate as a self-disclosing Proxy but, for whatever reasons, is prone to secrecy and slides toward the preferred Plant (think Ketchum/Armstrong Williams). Per the Dictionary of Military Terms, it's a move to the right on the propaganda spectrum, from white to grey to black.
But this is what influencers do, from Martin Luther King to Larry Ellison. And in the rough-and-tumble technology business, no one -- least of all disingenuous reporters -- should expect playmakers to pull their persuasive punches or play like Boy Scouts (think Bill Belichick).
This isn't an apology for the pumped-up competitor. And it's not an endorsement of the pat-it-down collaborator. It's an explanation of how the game is played in every marketplace.
You run plays. Plays are run on you. And Microsoft, I doubt, is going to let Google have its day in any court. Rules or reputations be damned.
Alan Kelly
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Plant
Plant: PT
Definition
A SECRET ALLY. A trusted and confidential ally - usually disguised or undisclosed to the opponent - who is placed by a player to seed or sense information and movements in a marketplace.
FTC to Regulate Word of Mouth?
December 18, 2006
Challenges Marketers to Make Their Propaganda Transparent
According to a http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/11/AR200612... ">December 12 article in the Washington Post, The Federal Trade Commission issued an opinion that “…companies engaging in word-of-mouth marketing, in which people are compensated to promote products to their peers, must disclose those relationships.”
If you think about it, this is the same structural difference between "Grey Propaganda" and "White Propaganda." It may be uncomfortable to think of marketing as propaganda, but look at the definition. According to the Department of Defense Dictionary of Military Terms, Grey Propaganda is “propaganda that does not specifically identify any source.” White Propaganda is “propaganda disseminated and acknowledged by the sponsor or by an accredited agency thereof.” This is clearly how marketers operate, in both these arenas.
So what does this mean in terms of Playmaking? Good Playmakers often enlist Surrogates to expand the reach and influence of a player’s normal scope and capability. But when it comes to Word of Mouth marketing, the relationship between the marketer and the company they represent is not always clear. So the FTC is running a Challenge to call for more transparency – to run fewer Plants and more Proxies.
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Plant
Plant: PT
Definition
A SECRET ALLY. A trusted and confidential ally - usually disguised or undisclosed to the opponent - who is placed by a player to seed or sense information and movements in a marketplace.
HP's New Way?
September 20, 2006
Tech's News Leak Scandal
As the story of HP's corporate spying operation unfolds, we're reminded that playmakers don't always play by the rules or play the game directly. Their strategies can be covert and surrogates can be used to do their dirty work.What appears to have triggered the scandal was the handiwork of HP's own board director, George "Jay" Keyworth, who resigned recently, having admitted to running his own play, a Leak of confidential information to the press.
To ferret out the rogue director, the venerated computer maker appears to have used private investigators and pseudonyms -- what in playmaking amount to Plants -- to learn by way of "pretexting" what's otherwise none of HP's business. From phone companies to unwitting reporters, like Cnet's Dawn Kawamoto, the plays worked...at least until HP sprung another Leak.
So what's next? Look for HP and its newly-implicated CEO, Mark Hurd, to tell the whole story, and then some, by way of a Lantern. Perhaps, too, he'll take responsibility and take the hit, running what parliamentary debaters call a Disco. He'll otherwise be tempted to run less convincing Filters and Recasts. "- Login to post comments
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