Zune Master Program: Parties and Beer to Promote the Brand?

Do you remember the Zune Master Program launch last November? The program was made to recruit young college students to promote the Zune. The Zune Ambassadors, as they call them, received a limited edition Zune player with the Zune master logo on the back of the device. The selected few also received promotional items and a “budget” to organize parties. 

This type of marketing, also known as viral marketing, is a way to promote products using ordinary people. Microsoft is not the first company to use this technique, but it’s normally less formalized than this.

As we can read in an interesting discussion going on right now at Avclub, people have different opinions about this. Here’s what someone who attend one of these parties wrote about it:

A party was going on a few doors down from my friend's apartment complex in Minneapolis a few weeks ago. My friend said that she'd been invited to the party earlier in the day by the tenant of the apartment (with whom she was only a casual acquaintance) with promises of "Guitar Hero on the XBox360, great tunes coming from the Zune, and free beer." When we stopped by we found two dozen college students relaxing, drinking, playing Guitar Hero, in a room covered with posters for Microsoft's mp3 player, the Zune. After some free social lubricant (MGD), the host told us the whole story: Microsoft paid him to host parties like this. As long as he documented the party with pictures, he was reimbursed for all the expenses and paid a little extra for his "trouble." What sort of marketing is this? Does it happen with a lot of other mega-corporations? If so, how do I get such a sweet gig? 

A Zune Ambassador answered back by saying:

I'm involved with the same thing, which is actually called the "Zune masters" program (begin making jokes... now). It consists of about 200 college kids around the country. They don't actually provide us with beer, you have to lie and say you bought pizza with your "refreshments budget".

If you surfed on Flickr with the Zune tag, you probably noticed thousands of Zune party pictures.  But don't get too excited here, most of them don't look as good as the above picture from the SF State Social Club Graduation...

Personally, I don’t have a problem with this practice. At least Microsoft is doing it with some form of transparency. They publically announced the program and never tried to hide it from the public. The students are not enrolled in something illegal and are not brain washed by Microsoft either. 
Relying on students to promote your brand could somehow be a risky business. The control they have on the parties is near to zero and if something bad happened someday, Microsoft could be blamed for it.

Have you been to a Zune ambassador party yet? How was it? Are you a Zune Ambassador? Tell us about it!

Comments

[djfooteking]

I have been a zunemaster since the beginning. It has been a blast. Not only do you go to planned functions you also generate your own. It is a perfect gig for someone who is a self-motivated social type. I had a great year doing this.

[sporkie]

So, i would love to do this, where do i get info on it? im in the boston area, lots of schools!!!!