Of everything I heard while I was at SXSW, there was one comment that really stuck with me.

It was made by one of the panelists at the “Suxorz: Worst Social Media of 2007” panel (good summary here; podcast here) in response to a very good question from my friend Stephen. During the panel discussion, one of the recurring themes of bad social marketing was dishonesty. Usually, it involved a corporation misrepresenting itself, either by pretending to be a real person or paying a real person to “independently” endorse a product.

The essence of the problem here seemed simple enough to me. The notion that genuine opinions are priceless (i.e., they are not for sale) is the source of social media’s value to the marketplace. It’s why I care about what a random person says about the quality of various moving services in Austin. It’s also what makes corruption of that media so tempting on both sides. After all, it’s a lot cheaper for HP to pay off some no-name blogger that it is to pay for an endorsement from Jay Z. And for the blogger, using your kids to shill for HP might seem like an easy way to earn an extra buck.

It’s actually not too different from steroids in baseball. The stakes are high and the enforcement is non-existent. Cheating becomes irresistible. Like Groucho Marx said, “The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you’ve got it made.”

It all seemed fairly black and white to me. But Stephen picked up on an interesting, and potentially problematic parallel between specious social marketing (which is bad) and ARGs (which we would like to think are good). He pointed out that in an ARG, “the whole idea is to keep the secret.” So, he asked, “How do you balance that kind of secrecy with being open and honest at the same time so you don’t piss people off?”

The moderator, Henry Copeland had a great response (this is the comment that stuck with me): “I would argue that [an ARG is] like an ad on television that shows a beautiful woman in a bathtub and in the end, happens to be selling you beer. It’s a fiction, you enter into the fiction, and in the end you find out…ok, this was brought to you by Miller beer.” In the same way, with an ARG, there’s an implicit acknowledgement that the game is fiction and “it’s just a question of who is the author.”

Another panelist, Rebecca Lieb, chimed in: “The question is whether the disclosure was built in from the front end, even if it happens at the back end.” Of course, with something like a book or a TV spot, that “disclosure” really is built in and everyone clearly understands it from the get-go. When you buy a novel, you find it in the fiction section of the bookstore, it is labeled as such, and even if the author paints a very vivid picture in your mind, you know that what you are imagining is not, strictly speaking, factual. This idea of “fiction,” the disclosure of which is completely built in to the experience of reading a novel, is what permits us to enjoy the vicarious pleasures of imagination without feeling like a sucker when the ride is over. So we can choose to engage with the book. We can choose to enter the fiction. (Versus say, reading A Million Little Pieces as a true story only to eventually find out it’s a fraud.)

Basically, Copeland is arguing that ARGs are the same way.

Of course what’s interesting about the online world and social media is that these media have new sets of disclosure conventions—ones that may not be as easy to decipher as those of books and TV spots. Suddenly, we’re not as capable of recognizing fiction the way we do in the offline world. And perhaps making it worse, as another panelist put it, “marketers think that online is a playground where there are no rules.” But I wouldn’t agree that marketers think there are no rules. In fact, not only do they know that the rules exist, they must know exactly what the rules are, because deceptive social marketing is a conscious exploitation of those rules. Just like you don’t just waltz into a bank sight unseen and try to rob it without first understanding how they protect the goods. Subversion of the rules requires knowledge of the rules.

The real difference is that unlike the TV world, where agencies and marketers must go through a relatively small number of gatekeepers (who actually enforce certain standards), the social media world is such as vast collection of people and organizations (according to Shiv Singh of Avenue A Razorfish, 120,000 blogs are created every day) it becomes much easier to find someone willing to compromise themselves (or to just fake it yourself).

So what are these rules, anyway?                                   

I can think of only two. The first one is what Rebecca Lieb identified earlier:

Rule #1: Disclose the fiction.

This disclosure can be explicit (such as the book that proclaims identifies itself as “A Novel” on the cover) or implicit (such as a TV spot, which operates within a pretty strict set of conventions: interrupting American Idol, lasting 30 seconds, etc.)

However it’s established, disclosure is important because when it comes to “entering the fiction,” the participant or consumer should be able to do so willingly, with full knowledge of what they’re in for. This is what separates hoaxes, scams and willful manipulation from ARGs, satire and fiction in general. In other words, when you choose not to disclose the fiction, you’re playing a shell game with your consumers.

Some might argue that when we challenge or play with these conventions, we are merely pushing boundaries. We’re not fooling people, the argument goes, we’re challenging them to see the world with new eyes! Sort of like the Coen Brothers did in Fargo, which opens with the following disclaimer:

THIS IS A TRUE STORY. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred.

Yet during the end credits, you may notice another disclaimer: “The persons and events portrayed in this production are fictitious.” So what can we say about this? Are the Coens guilty of deception?

Of course not, and while you could simply say that this is the difference between art and commerce, I would argue that the true distinction (here comes rule #2) has to do with intent. A fake blog from Sony intends to deceive you. (And the ultimate reason for that deception is, obviously, to sell more PSPs.)

On the other hand, Fargo’s “deception” is not actually intended to deceive you. To the extent that they play with the boundaries that separate fiction from reality, it is only meant to enhance the experience of watching the movie, to amplify all of the emotions that go along with the movie-watching experience. It’s no different than telling everyone around the campfire that your ghost story is “100% true.” Especially because (going back to rule #1), it’s all done within the confines of the movie theatre, a place where the disclosure of “rules” is again built into the experience. When the lights go down, you know it’s time to suspend disbelief and enter the fiction.

So now we have rule #2: Don’t willfully deceive your audience.

The most egregious offenders at the Suxorz (Walmarting Across America, HP’s Pay Per Post, John Mackey’s message board shenanigans, the Target Rounders, or Sony’s fake blog) violated both of these rules. In the agency world, I’d submit to you that the onus is on us to ensure that our clients are appropriately building in disclosure regardless of the communication vehicle, be it a banner ad, TV spot, blog or ARG. More than likely, the grey areas will be encountered with the newer media such as ARGs and blogs. These are the places where marketers have less experience and are looking to us for guidance on how to play.

As the agency business of decades past continues to unravel, it is critical that we not only help our clients understand and embrace these new media, but also that we educate them on how to play responsibly. Social media may be a playground of sorts, but like Walter said in The Big Lebowski, “This is not Nam. There are rules.” Luckily for us, the rules are pretty simple.