• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, July 28, 2009

Interesting non sequitur on the “Entertainment Looks For Scale” panel discussion raised by an audience member questioning whether word-of-mouth engines like Twitter or social networks and bloggers are beginning to compete with â€" or might disintermediate â€" controlled online entertainment marketing campaigns like the kind that are being implemented via advertising networks.

“It’s kind of a silly question,” Brand.net’s Elizabeth Blair rejoined, invoking a debate that might seem more likely to take place at a search marketing summit than an ad network conference.

It’s not a matter of “paid vs. unpaid” word-of-mouth marketing, she said, “it’s a mix.”

“You can’t just leave that to the masses to do it,” she concluded. “I still think brands are going to want to have a pretty big component of what they do that they control.”

Or as Joe Eibert, Director, Digital Marketing, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, quipped: "We buy all our word-of-mouth.