Insidious pitch" in social media messages

Washington Post review of two books on new-age advertising, one of which is Terry O'Reilly and Mike Tennant's "The Age of Persuasion" a lively, anecdotal primer that chronicles how advertising became, depending on whom you ask, a culture-shaping or culture-destroying $450 billion-a-year industry. They're seen here at a book launching in Toronto last year. O'Reilly (right) and Tennant (behind) are advertising veterans who collaborate on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation program "O'Reilly on Advertising," and their book, says the Post, is filled with smart and breezy tales told from an insider's perspective. The Post's trenchant verdict on modern advertising: "For every clever and entertaining viral sensation such as Old Spice's "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like," there are countless other messages, from corporate-sponsored bloggers, YouTube activists and every medium or channel in the social media universe where it is nearly impossible to separate creative expression from insidious corporate pitch.