Links on Gonzo Marketing

Written April 24. 2000, at 14:11 GMT.

Ever since I first stumbled across the Cluetrain Manifesto I've been somewhat facinated by the ideas that it holds.

Soon after I subscribed to Entropy Gradient Reversals, a newsletter conducted by Rageboy, a.k.a. Christopher Locke one of two Cluetrain Manifesto writers.

Following a link in the newest EGR message I read: Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst Practices at Edventure, and Fear and Loathing on the Web in the Industry Standard. Both are a good read.

All this "cut-the-crap-marketing" feels very appealing to me. Seeing it applied in Rageboy's writings (Mr. Locke is aggressively marketing himself as a talent/thinker) takes it to a higher level. It kind of jumps up into your face, makes a flip-flop on the way down and all of a sudden starts to make double negative sense.

Funnily enough, C.Locke seems not to be the only Gonzo marketing guy out there. Oliviero Toscani, of Outrageous Benetton ad-campaign fame, has been called The Colorful Dissenter of Benetton. How exactly his views fit the idea of applied Gonzo marketing I leave up to you but, according to C.Locke, this Toscani guy feels like a long lost twin-brother to him.

Some quotes from Toscani:

"Media is just a bunch of bullshit. Media is the real advertising."

"Americans don't give a fuck about death."

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