Straight from the AstroTurf

According to Brandweek, earlier this year Sprint sent a free phones to a bunch of bloggers, under the auspices of a “Sprint Ambassador Program.” A Sprint rep called this “a grass-roots approach.”

What a snooze, right? Actually, there’s something interesting about the article (a truncated version, which I guess ran in Adweek, is online here), but it took me a while to realize what that interesting something was.

All the “Ambassadors” mentioned in the article are bloggers who happen to be professional marketers or consultants of one sort or another — people whose blogs are largely devoted to importance of blogging (and of hiring a consultant who, you know, really gets just how important blogging is).

Not surprisingly, these people are pretty impressed by Sprint’s tactic. After all, as blogggers they can tell the truth, no holds barred, blah blah blah. (Don’t Consumer Reports, or Walt Mossberg, etc., do the same? Whatever! Only someone who doesn’t get it would ask that question.) What all the marketing bloggers basically say (without actually saying it) is: “You can tell how smart Sprint is, because they agree with my point of view.”

Evidently it was actually one of the “Ambassadors” who told Brandweek about the “grass roots” campaign — resulting in the article that gave publicity to Sprint, to him, and to the concepts that he pushes in his own business. Intentionally or not, Sprint stumbled on something that’s better than grass-roots marketing: AstroTurf marketing.