6 Comments

Tragedy (of) Marketing

Apr 18, 2007
by

When will they learn? Why do marketers think that any newsworthy event makes for a great marketing opportunity? I can see it now. 32 dead in Virginia? Let’s put out a press release linking our product to the recent events at Virginia Tech! Way to go team, you really capitalized on all these dead people!

Wayne, I know what happened to Marty and Joe. They found their way over to the PR area and they are teaching classes on how to use press releases to drum up business. I’m sure these companies are all graduates:

Who in the heck would think that the word “massacre” would ever be a good thing to associate with your business? I guess we know now. US Netcom = massacre.

About Brad Waller

Some say Brad created the first affiliate program. We’ll never know for sure, but we do know that Brad has been running businesses online since 1994 and affiliate programs since 1996. When he is not running the affiliate program for EPage Classifieds, helping publishers monetize their sites with AdJungle, or working on iPhone applications, Brad is also busy starting up the Performance Marketing Alliance, a trade association created to represent and build the entire performance based industry.

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Filed under: Internet Strategy + Media + Online Advertising
  • Sheryl

    "Tradgedy" That's a new one on me. :)

    I read a few of the press releases and I have no problem with them at all. Some of them don't even seek to gain financially and the ones that do are done in a respectful way.

    Think of very small school districts that don't have the resources to use a tech consultant or what about day care facilities?

    Nothing wrong with this.

  • http://adjungle.com/aj/home.jsp?r=300affiliates Brad Waller

    Oops. Spell checkers don't check the title I guess.

    All those releases came up with a search for "Virginia Tech" or from a link to the "tragedy at Virginia Tech" on the release sites.

    The point is that I find it abhorrent to try to capitalize on the event. If they really had such a perfect product or service, then they should have been marketing it beforehand with all these great benefits. Then maybe when an event like this happens, the media will immediately recall (or maybe search and find) these resources and call them up for comments.

  • http://schaafco.com Brook Schaaf

    As they say, as long as they spell your name right.

  • http://www.wayneporter.com Wayne Porter

    I saw this after 9-11. It made me sick. viral, patriotic campaigns…yes Brad I find it disgusting, and insensitive.

  • http://www.samharrelson.com Sam Harrelson

    As someone who lives and works in a university environment on a daily basis, I still find this situation mind-numbing.

    The thought of people cashing in, regardless of who else is cashing in, is beyond reproach.

    Whoever thinks there's a marketing possibility or that "it's OK because NBC is doing it" needs to seriously stop and think about the big picture.

    Twitter? Sure, that would be great in such a situation. Let's not forget that it took almost two hours for the university to send out an email about the situation. I can't imagine the university (or any university) would even know what Twitter is at this point.

    We use a blog for my classes and none of my students know what a feed reader is or how to use one.

    Hopefully, one day, these sorts of quick information dispersement systems will save lives and not just add a new latte machine to the Googleplex.

  • http://www.wayneporter.com Wayne Porter

    a) Twitter is at this point= they do Sam- most are in second life.

    b) feed reader- we need to call it Push Mail.

    RSS, XML- why not say just CIA? just a bunch of triple caps.

    Yes this stuff disgusts me- i remember it will…inspired this. The irony- I just could just see it.

    http://www.spywareguide.com/articles/spyware_pote…

    -wayne