Astroturfing

Jeff Bernoff writes in Groundswell about a new series of short documentaries from DuPont appearing across the internet.

The post talks about how DuPont took the high road - they paid for media space to run their shorts on places like Boing Boing instead of just uploading it to YouTube and pretending it was viral. He uses an interesting phrase: “they were smart enough not to take the astroturf route.”

We’d never heard that term before (being hideous Luddites), but it makes perfect sense. Astroturf is kind of the metaphoric opposite of home grown or grass roots - it’s a plastic, lifeless product, not something organic and natural.

Jeff’s story took us over to the New PR AntiAstroturfing homepage. Where have we been? This stuff is great reading for any online copywriter.

Mary Bellis at About.com informs us that Astroturf was rolled out in 1966 at the Astrodome, the new ballpark of the Houston Astros. Clever, huh? For a while, Astroturf was all the rage. But over the last decade, there has been a backlash in favor of natural turf. Newer stadiums like the re-furbished Camden Yards and the Durham Bulls Athletic Park have real grass on the playing field.

Turns out nobody like Astroturf.

Thanks, Jeff, for updating our vocabulary.