The world of marketing provides an interesting, insightful and sometimes bizzare look into the world of consumer behavior.

There’re marketing tactics which some will consider hard selling, while others consider amusing and engaging like TV informercial-based tactics of pitchmen Billy Mays who’s recently frontlining his own reality series Pitchmen.

And then there’s Israel-born Vince Shlomi, better known as Vince Offer, who’s gain some fame promoting the ShamWow cleaning product. What may not be as well known is that Vince got a foothold in direct marketing with promoting his movie The Underground Comedy Movie (Vince also initiated a lawsuit against the Farrelly Brothers and 20th Century Fox for alleged similarities between his movie and There’s Something About Mary – which Vince subsequently lost).

So it appears that consumers are ok with being marketed with as long as they are entertained – giving rise to the golden commandment of marketing – Don’t be boring.

What I’ve been seeing is a rise in “soft marketing” where the promotion of products and services are less “in your face” and while it might not elicit the type of instant buy response that direct marketing might get, it can be more effective and possibly insidious in the long term.

Take the recent Syfy (SciFi) reality series WCG Ultimate Gamer – ostensibly about the World Cyber Games competitive gaming event.

Originating in South Korea where Continue reading →