Actors have become the secret agents of capitalism. That is, if the
acting is so good as to be invisible. A new form of "under-the-radar marketing"
has emerged that not only is completely pervasive, but undetectable. With
50 operatives in 30 cities, this insidious and fast-growing advertising
tactic of Big Fat Incorporated employs paid performers to infiltrate bars,
use a brand, and perform a ritual in such a way as to engage others around
them - a tactic Ressler likes to call "roach bait". Big Fat's form of stealth
advertising has provoked a flurry of articles in the Globe and Mail, the
Toronto Star, and the New York Times Magazine, among others, calling these
marketing practices deceptive and unethical in the way they manipulate
anxieties of discerning truth from illusion, "real" from "unreal". This
paper will consider this performative marketing phenomenon and the anxieties
it has inspired within the broader context of performance theory, aligning
the consternation of columnists and critics with the sentiments of notorious
anti-theatrical thinkers throughout history.
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