The whole key to buzz marketing is for the target to not know they're being buzzed. It's a subtle manipulation that's difficult to craft. So when Slate's Seth Stevenson received several emails at the same time wondering where they could get a Burger King mask for Halloween, and coincidentally, Burger King just happened to have launched a website selling the mask for $9.

The article poses some interesting questions such as whether or not this type of marketing is ethical, whether or not Seth has been duped, since he did indeed write about the masks anyway (and now, so am I...) And another intersting tidbit. That despite the success of the Subservient Chicken campaign, McDonalds' web traffic increased more during the campaign and there was some consumer backlash once they found out it was a promo for Burger King.

Read the article here.