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Viral Videos = The New Paid Post?
Have we moved from paid blog posts to paid viral video posts? It sure seems that way with the post coming out of Techcrunch tonight. Let me start by saying that about 2 months ago, a local NY startup posted a comment on a post on CN which seemed more like a marketing ploy than a legit comment. When I called the company to ask them about it, they said that they hired a firm to plant comments all over the place. We exchanged some emails with them telling me that they knew better than I – I said fine. Eventually they came back and said I was right.
Over my years in a role where I either made decisions or was party to the decisions at one of the largest public companies, so many Internet marketing scams came across my desk. The one thing I said all along was that if anyone finds out you are running a scam, it will be bad… very bad.
Before we jump into the info below – let me say that gaming only works for a short time because eventually everyone begins to game the same way. Dan speaks about 100k views, eventually its 1m, 5m, etc. And the most important part is what Dan leaves out – the real net benefit – which there probably is none. Anyone can get numbers my friend. Is Dan selling us the new paid post which just happens to be a video?
Tonight we have Dan Greenberg who is the newest infomercial salesman – "I can get you to 100k views on your video!" — Reminds me of the guy who in his latest infomercial now teaches others how to sell infomercials because he wanted to finally show everyone how to do it. And now Dan is doing the same for us! Is this what he is teaching the new class at Stanford where he is a TA?
Dan can’t tell us who his clients are because naturally it would ruin them. Don’t worry Dan, we already know.
I love part 3 – "The Core Strategy" – which is basically to fake everything and pay to get hits. Here is one nugget, "Blogs: We reach out to individuals who run relevant blogs and actually pay them to post our embedded videos. Sounds a little bit like cheating/PayPerPost, but it’s effective and it’s not against any rules." LAWL.
Dan also teaches us thumbnail optimization – "It’s no surprise that videos with thumbnails of half naked women get hundreds of thousands of views."
The good doctor sums up the article better than I ever could, "That is, when there is financial incentive and opportunity to game a system — even when that system has the appearance of being “open”, “transparent”, and built upon the goodwill and trust of its users (how typically quaint!) — someone will do it."
Howard Lindzon notes, "Forget the tricks, the ones given are old news. They don’t build audience. Who cares about 100,000 views. Wallstrip does not have one video on YouTube with 100,000 views. That was never important to Adam, Jeff and I…audience was. That comes from showing up every day with an idea and a focus. That created influence. I would say we proved that."
The part Howard leaves out is that marketers and advertisers still care (unfortunately) about numbers instead of the audience he speaks of.
Lastly, Ashkan Karbasfrooshan weighs in with, "It’s a numbers’ game, for sure, but you shouldn’t be cooking the numbers to win. Call me naive, call me idealistic, but that’s my philosophy."
Look, here is the bottom line in a much shorter post than the one on TC – any system will be gamed. And any system where there is a financial stake will be gamed even further. But it lasts for a short time and the negative consequences far outweigh the temporary benefit.
I understand your points, my question to you is how does this differ from a book store putting a new release they want to sell a lot of copies of (incentives form publisher) right in the front of the store. The book store is helping to manufacturer interest by positioning the book right there. Very similar to what these companies are doing – manufacturing interest – to help their clients get noticed.
I have posted an indepth view on YawpCo.com
well spoken. it is all about numbers the only difrence is the big companys hide it well
You are right. These self proclaimed “Purists” have been drinking from a Kool-Aid dispenser that sits no where near the bank or the e-commerce strategies that will prevail now and in the future. While I agree that content, customer service and quality product are Paramount on or offline, most internet geeks can’t market their way out of a wet paper bag.
Infomercials and their marketing tactics as well as paid search and any other form of paid advertisement are designed to do what most of these pretenders will never do… SELL PRODUCT!!! Unfortunately, the same tactics that work for the good guy work for the crooks. As in the past, so is true today…BUYER BEWARE! Do your homework and buy smartly, but don’t knock creative means to market product. These whiners can cry and complain all they want, but several hundred billion dollars later, effective infomercial marketers are still laughing ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK. Meanwhile in most cases many wanna be marketers are taking out small business loans in the hopes of selling product with outdated marketing methods and tired strategy and failing all day long! What rules? Remember…the one with the GOLD Makes the RULES!
I have taken Good honest clients with incredible products from almost nothing to hundreds of millions of dollars in sales with just these types of tactics…What’s wrong with that? Unless you are adverse to honest success I can’t see why there is any crying going on at all!
Jay:
There are numerous techniques – legal and ethical – that companies/marketers use to get products ‘front and center’, whether it’s traditional advertising, product placement (what you mention, and it’s huge in grocery stores, where companies pay to have their line of cereal at eye level).
The key word I think in this whole debate is ‘deception’. There are systems and regulations in place – think the FCC and other government regulators – to protect the public from fraud and deception. Some stores will use ‘bait and switch’ tactics, which are illegal, where they advertise an insanely low price for a product, and then you find the product is not in the store, but an alternative product – at a higher price – is offered instead. This is illegal.
I think the closest comparison I can come up with (to compare to the fake commenters in the video story), is when you see a product advertised, in print or on the web for instance, and there are several glowing ‘testimonials’ from real people about the product. If the company made those testimonials up, and the public and authorities found out, do you not think this would raise a cloud over the company? And I’m sure fines would be levied.
The video marketing techniques we’ve been discussing may not fall into the same legal area as these I’m mentioning, but they leave the same nasty taste in many mouths. Whenever deception is used, it runs the risk of alienating consumers, and devaluing/damaging the whole concept of UGC (user generated content). The Web, for all of its creative glory, is getting overrun by tech savvy opportunists with little or no ethics, who will stop at nothing to game the system.
Allen,
Though I see the trickery involved, here I’m still on the fence as to whether or not this is fundementally different to the general practices of marketing.
In particular, I would love to hear you opinion about Bzzagent.com and other such players – do you think they cross the ethical line?
Great blog – your success is inspiring as it is clearly the result of sincere, hard work and a total committment.
Adrian
Allen:
Well written response. We know when something doesn’t ‘feel right’, and this guy’s methods come no where close to passing the sniff test. I’d lump his methodology and snickering justifications into those used and given by others who deploy trickery to ‘get the message out’. Take the endless stacks of ridiculous solicitations in the mail, especially those with IMPORTANT FINANCIAL DOCUMENT INSIDE on the envelope, or a fake check in the envelope window, or the ones that mimic a federal document, so you open it, then trash it immediately. It was viewed, right? Did it make a sale? No. I’ve never, and will never, do business with anyone who uses misleading means to market, advertise and do business in general.
Marketers fool themselves into thinking “if I can just get past the noise, and get someone to read/view the message”, and then use any and all means to do that. They are clueless, or are they? Once a consumer senses trickery, the game is over, and a NO SALE sign pops up. Numbers mean nothing. Integrity, compelling content, compelling products, great service are part of the long term strategy. And you can sleep at night, knowing your little scam kingdom will not fall down one day when the curtain’s pulled. In this case, the guy pulled the curtain himself. The comparison to an infomercial salesman is perfect. He feels he has now risen to the level of marketing ’sage’.