WOM rhymes with VOM.

NYT ad column today features a company called 888.com who is paying London taxi drivers to talk about their brand.

If I discovered I was being stealthily marketed to by a cab driver, I would be pissed off.

As the managing director of Taxi Promotions says, “The driver can choose what he wants to point out,” Mr. Moses said. “It’s not a hard-core sales talk; it’s sort of a subliminal talk.” Subliminal? Really? What an ass. Does this guy think people are fucking stupid? There's no way cab riders won't see through this crap.

And what about the guy who wrote the article. As far as I can tell, the only opposing view point he can find is that maybe people won't want their ear chatted off by a shilling cab driver. There's no discussion about disclosure, how people might react or whether or not this is an effective tactic. I think this would be some juicy territory to explore.

Not only does this cheapen human interaction by making it a "subliminal," paid advertisement, but it weakens the image of the brand once people figure out what's going on. Yet another reason why advertising, at it's worst, sucks donkeys.