Netflix has admitted and now apologized for hiring actors to pretend to be "enthusiastic customers" at a press conference in Canadian announcing the launch of it's new Internet streaming service.
The actors were asked to spill into the street and encouraged to "play types, for example, mothers, film buffs, tech geeks, couch potatoes etc. reciting lines from a prepared script.
"Extras are to behave as members of the public, out and about enjoying their day-to-day life, who happen upon a street event for Netflix and stop by to check it out," reads an information sheet handed out to extras.
"Extras are to look really excited, particularly if asked by media to do any interviews about the prospect of Netflix in Canada."
One has to wonder how typical this kind of corporate behavior is, a board-room full of people inhabiting a reality-distorted bubble nodding enthusiastically to one another without a care about what people really think about their product or service, making strategic decisions based on make-believe.
Do U.S. auto makers come to mind? Health Insurance companies? Wall Street?