Passive information as a marketing tool

I nearly stepped into another potential libel issue recently - critical comments I posted about the Transcendental Meditation movement over 2 years ago on the comparative religion forums were revived and called out as slander by a member.

Having already learned my lesson on dealings with Platinax, I removed the original comment and set out a series of critical questions instead.

The crux of the debate is whether a bunch of TM people meditating in a room together, can lower crime rates in the city they do it in - known as the Mahirishi Effect.

According to the TM websites, not only is this an emphatic “YES!”, but they also back it up with plenty of “scientific” evidence.

The only problem is, none of this evidence is actually peer-reviewed scientific evidence. And in having difficulty finding any, it’s hard to give credence to their claims.

In other words, the group is doing nothing more than claiming its ideas are validated, without actually using any outside sources of validation.

Then one of the CR members posted a link to what looks like a complete validation.

The Institute of Science, Technology, and Public Policy (ISTPP) looks like a find third party validation. After all, the link provided shows absolute proof that the Mahirishi Effect exists.

But, wait - who is the ISTPP? The e-mail link on the left nav gives the game away - it’s a TM movement site.

When you consider the overview of the situation, it’s hard not to see a propaganda campaign carefully at work - join the TM movement, give them some cash, and you can stop crime and save the world.

As a marketing pitch it takes the initiative and in a passive-aggressive manner presents “Truth” to the masses - not through telling users what to think, but simply by presenting aggressively promotional material as a passive information resource from supposedly “authorative” sources.

It’s not the first time I’ve seen similar in action - I had awful trouble with Baha’i members doing similar on CR until that was dealt with.

Overall, in marketing terms, it shows that there are other possible marketing avenues well suited to working online.

Recently, a number of companies have sought to court bloggers, to provide product recommendations.

However, a more passive-aggressive way to carry out the marketing would be to create a string of sites - under various guises - that already provide glowing recommendations.

True, the internet is a social medium - but you don;t have to target a single person to preach to the masses - you can put your own information up, and simply let the masses find it, discuss it, and agree that surely such a reputable looking site couldn’t possibly have any ulterior motive.

It’s not a tactic I’d personally feel comfortable using - but it’s interesting to observe that it exists.