Found on CrunchGear, and originally on Boing Boing Gadgets is a great example of one or more people spamming the comments of everywhere they can find to promote a new phone by Motorola. One comment on Boing Boing demonstrates how much hard work this individual has been doing to shoehorn his stock comment into completely bizarre and irrelevant posts – just look at the posts.
Incidentally, from May 26, 2008, the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 came into force.
This includes measures to prevent companies or marketing agencies posting on online forums and social networks to advertise goods or services in a way which implies they’re a normal consumer.
Part 2: Banned Practices: (22)
“Falsely claiming or creating the impression that the trader is not acting for purposes relating to his trade, business, craft or profession, or falsely representing oneself as a consumer.
A second-hand car dealership puts a used car on a nearby road and displays a handwritten advertisement reading ‘One careful owner. Good family run-around. £2000 or nearest offer. Call Jack on 01234 56789’. The sign gives the impression that the seller is not selling as a trader and hence this would breach CPR” See more, here.
Reading about a ‘viral marketing’ mishap for Motorola…someone’s been spamming blog comments
Add This: http://tinyurl.com/6p5xl2
You should see some of the junk PR ‘comments’ that pile up in my parenting blog’s intray. Invariably they begin with “Great post – your readers might be interested in my environmental website/our points saving voucher scheme/our ace new potty training product…All of them are American companies and none of them have noticed that their products have zero relevance to a UK blog writer. Though I did get an apology from one recently – I should frame it.
Thanks for the original wording – that is useful.
What do you think of Magpie then?
Magpie? I think they’ve got it right that the most profitable part of Twitter is around the content stream – but not sure whether it will be accepted by the majority of users…look forward to some more indepth thoughts soon!