Nvidia washing up with community manipulation

Boing Boing and The Consumerist have been carrying a story relating to accusations that Nvidia have been employing shills to post positive comments about their products on various gaming community forums. Nvidia have so far claimed that they're giving proactive members of forums with 'gifts' to encourage them to move into other communities and spread word of the quality of Nvidia products.

Now, I wasn't really surprised that Nvidia had employed such tactics to promote their products; it seems a logical step in Internet marketing. I was however surprised by the reaction the story had provoked. Members of the forum and the wider community felt an invisible line has been crossed, and that Nvidia should be ashamed of such underhand tactics.

Whats also interesting is that a demographic I assumed would be 'hardened' to brand marketing was so shocked and appalled by the strategy. It reminded me of a lecture I attended whist at college by a retired industrial designer. He was involved in the design of the first plastic washing up liquid bottle and spoke about how the marketing team influenced the design process.

Since its invention washing liquid had been distributed in functional glass bottles. There were no brand differentiators in the market; it was purely a functional product. With the advent of industrial plastics it became possible to create a completely new dispenser, and along with it a new brand. Marketers discovered that married women were the main decision makers relating to the purchase of washing products. They also deduced that washing up was a lonely labor of drudgery that nobody really enjoyed and duly briefed the designers to 'sex up' the product.

The outcome was the now established cylindrical bottle with a bright red top, that when squeezed squirts foaming liquid over your dirty plates. Now I don't know if housewives up and down the country were so thrilled by the tactile experience they didn't think to complain about how they were being manipulated at a subconscious sexual level, but the brand was a runaway success and quickly dominated the market.

The moral; nothing happens where commerce has an interest without a reason - a marketing team have been there before you!