Last year in Media History we learned about the good-looking people who get paid to use products in public places, like public transportation and malls.
How can I tell who’s a shill? How common are they? How obvious are they?
I’ve never seen anyone I’d think was being paid to advertise something… Am I just oblivious?
I remember seeing ads for people to play the N-Gage, some phone/MP3 player/Game Boy kinda thing. They usually want people in a major metro area, attractive and outgoing, that sort of thing.
I saw a story about this on a TV newsmagazine show. They showed a woman in a bar asking people for a light. Then she’d chat about her new brand of smokes. A couple on the street would ask strangers to take their picture with their new digicamera, which they would rave about. A fellow would sit in a cafe or bus station playing a new game on his laptop, inviting strangers to play it. Nobody suspected they were being pitched.
There are cyber-shills, too. Denizens of chat rooms and message boards are paid to rave-review some new movie or game. Sometimes they just ask for opinions about a new product, and let the buzz happen on its own. I suspect I’ve seen some stealth selling on this message board.
Hehehe, I tend to rave about things. I would make a good shill…
If they go about it like that, I’d be quite likely to not know they’re shilling.
Are there studies regarding specific companies that do this? Especially in regards to how quickly word-of-mouth spreads on a hot new trend item by itself as opposed to through the use of shills…?
PS: Buy Laramie Cigarettes.
Laramie Cigarettes? I guess they’re okay, but if you like those, you simply have to try Fatdave Specials! They so rich and creamy, you’ll skip the sex and go straight to the cigarette! It takes several cartons before you get the full effect, but I’ll never smoke any other!
I feel a bit baffled when I see a thread asking “What’s your experience with (product or service)?” Is it an honest question, or am I about to be a part of some stealth ad? Maybe it would help to ask. Maybe not.
This entire thread might just be market research on the public perception of shills, you know.
This would explain why, no matter how painfully bad a movie might be, there’s always someone in Cafe Society who sings its praises.
(“I thought that Gigli was a great movie! J Lo and Ben are fabulous!”)
Then again, some people just have bad taste 
Shills are pretty expensive for the minor gain.
I’d say they were mainly used for very specific audiences.
E.g., if a company knew The Nature Company would put their butterfly collection kit on display at a particular test store, they might try to have fake parents to come in and ooh and ahh about it so the store manager saw a crowd gathering.
Or it might be when they know a camera crew will be outside of Macy’s on the day after Thankgiving for the annual Christmas Rush story.
> Shills are pretty expensive for the minor gain.
It depends. If you pay the shill in merchandise, for example, it could very much be worth it. Let’s say she gets free phone service if she shills the phone. It costs the company next to nothing.
Further, the shill isn’t just touching one customer at a time. If he signs up one new customer, that customer might become an unknowing shill, while showing the product to his friends and family.
It’s hard to guage the success of a shill, since the whole point is to remain stealthy. The customer shouldn’t ever know that they were just pitched to.
Obviously, a version of this goes on with celebs, them getting stuff “free” to wear to the oscars, fr’instance.
Regular people? In trendy areas, yes.
Sounds to me like just another way advertising agencies waste more of their clients money on stuff that sounds good.
Hehe, I’m just a simple Multimedia student… I don’t have any motives!
My friend and I used to go into chatrooms and rave about movies that never were. It was great fun. I think some people even told us they’d look into watching the movie.
P.S. Has anyone seen The Peach Tree? It’s amazing!
I fail to see the humor. Part of the fun of doing something humorous is to see the fruits of your labor by seeing their reaction when the joke is finally revealed. If you tell your friends and relatives about some phony movie, they’ll come back to you tom tell you they can’t find it and then you can have a good laugh.
But, playing the same joke on strangers that you’ll never see again is kind of useless.
Maybe they were just being polite. I don’t think very many people take chatroom movie reveiews very seriously.
Yeah, it was great. Especially the part with that tree. And the peaches and stuff. And the ending was just classic.