A few years ago a marketing magazine asked me to write about “ambient marketing”. This used to come under the heading of stunts. About 100 years ago Claude Hopkins had the idea of baking the world’s largest cake and putting it in a store window to promote Cote-o-Suet. If only he’d known he was doing ambient marketing.

Another magazine asked me to write about “confusion marketing”. This used to be called weaseling, a form of adroit misrepresentation. A good example is “Nothing acts faster than Anacin” – which makes you think Anacin acts faster than anything else.

It sometimes feels to me that every day someone with an eye for a fast buck renames something as old as the hills, and hoodwinks at vast profit another big fat segment of the people who’ve never bothered to study what makes messages sell.

We had viral marketing – once called member get a member - and written about a good 80 years ago by, yes, Claude Hopkins. And I just discovered that “word of mouth” marketing – which must be as old as commerce itself, has its own association. Then there are all the synonyms for Direct Marketing – Dialogue Marketing, Curriculum Marketing, Database Marketing, CRM (all you need is a computer and some software, dear, spend any money you’ve got left on the cheapest copy you can buy).

I say “good on you” to all the intellectual vultures who dream up these lucrative pranks, as their victims are usually gullible drones working for large corporations with too much marketing money for their own good.

The latest piece of froth was drawn to my attention by my Australian partner Malcolm Auld. It’s called "Conversational Marketing." Apparently the resident geniuses behind this little number are “industry veterans” Tom Troja and Tom Hespos. Nowadays, you understand, industry veterans are anyone who’s made a living for more than 5 years without being found out.

You can safely tell something is horseshit by the amount of jargon and cliché used by those promoting it, by the way. It seems this brilliant new wheeze which sounds awfully like talking to your customers about things you hope will interest them is “an advance on WOM”. (That’s Word-of-Mouth – initials are often a giveaway in this kind of thing - as in CRM).

What could this advance be, I asked myself. Shouting?

Well, sadly, WOM lacks structure and standards, the veterans reveal. I was worried. Are people using naughty words when “generating market connections”?

Anyhow, it seems Conversational Marketing (how soon will we be calling it CM?) "is the marketing strategy of connecting directly to the marketplace through online conversation. It is a direct and completely transparent interaction with customers, potential customers, brand fans and brand detractors. The conversation is initiated through ad units in blogs, Internet forums, social networking sites, message boards and any other forum that features two-way conversation. It allows people to talk about themselves in relation to a marketer's products."

Apparently, advertisers are trying to “navigate the opportunities that exist within the blogosphere”. The two vets have launched a new product called Can We Talk, “a process of listening to and spotlighting the customers' point of view, putting a human face on a company and brand, and providing marketers with insight and credibility.”

This is all good stuff, except that most sane customers don’t really care that much about your precious brands, friends. They want to have a good time, get laid and sometimes read blogs. What’s more, when people try to infiltrate their personal domain or exploit their personal details they tend to get really pissed off, as one or two like Facebook have discovered.

(Incidentally, if you did what Facebook did in Europe you would be in serious trouble for breaking the law)

Anyhow, it seems Can We Talk has been used by online marketer AccuQuote and Motorola plans to launch a campaign later this month. Motorola agency Draft/FCBi Worldwide chairman Pam Larrick has become a fan. Pam was once a colleague of mine and is extremely smart, so I guess she thinks her clients will fall for this one.

Mind you, she seems to have been infected by the pompous jargon bug, too. Her old boss David Ogilvy would soon have put a stop to this stuff.

"Conversational marketing allows you to start the conversation, listen and react," she explains. "You can add layers that make sense to the individual. It's about using consumer created content to engage in a conversation with an individual."

It seems Pam believes marketers need to “place more emphasis on individualized communications” and “The terminology used in the interactive world is not right for today's times. The word 'user' does not imply a person who is thinking and has feelings. When you call it an individual experience," she suggests, "it gets you to a different place. You start thinking of more personal experience imbued with context and relevant content."

I love it when my personal experiences are imbued with context and relevant content, don’t you? As opposed to what? Being out of place and irrelevant. This is one way I defined direct marketing 25 years ago: “Talking in the right place at the right time to the right people about the right things”.

Anyhow the two vets “have formed a strategic partnership” (always a giveaway) and make all this stuff which I imagined to be so simple far more complex. It is “a process for identifying relevant ongoing conversations on specific topics and engaging marketers with individual consumers who are pre-defined as receptive to a dialogue.”

"The individual is in control of the interactive engagement," says Troja. In the Can We Talk model, clients define specific topics relevant to their consumers and, he explains, "we start the Can We Talk process by advertising on relevant blogs and inviting people to comment about the topic."

Sean Cheyney, Vice President for Marketing and Business Development for insurance provider AccuQuote, says "I look at it as common sense marketing …Creating a conversation with the customer through the Internet is an extension of the personal dialogue insurance providers have always had with customers."

Do you want to discuss insurance on someone’s blog? Do you have personal conversations with your “insurance provider” –or do you just want good quote and fast service?

If the former, go and converse with a psychiatrist. If the latter, welcome to the rest of the sane world – and if you work in marketing, beware of this pretentious tripe.