Thursday, December 08, 2005

Clarification in ClickZ's Story "BzzAgent to Agents: Spill the Beans, Or Else"

Pamela Parker covered BzzAgent's latest change in disclosure policy in a ClickZ article entitled "BzzAgent to Agents: Spill the Beans, Or Else."

I just want to clarify a statement she made in the article:

BzzAgent says its new stance stems from a study conducted by Walter Carl, a professor at Northeastern University. The report found that disclosure created trust, combated a stigma about "stealth" marketing, and increased the depth of product-related discussions. Carl came to his conclusions by examining 270,000 word-of-mouth reports submitted by BzzAgent volunteers.

While BzzAgent's white paper did reference findings from a collaborative study we conducted (details forthcoming in the weeks ahead as I write up the findings for academic publication), it was BzzAgent who conducted their own internal analysis of the 270,000 word-of-mouth reports.

Reference to preliminary findings from our collaborative study are specifically called-out in the white paper. Otherwise, the results stem from BzzAgent's internal research or other third-party sources.

Thanks to Pete Blackshaw's post for raising my awareness of the ClickZ story.

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