Spammers Amongst the Slickest Marketers

Most readers will by now be so used to spam that we can detect and delete it without ever opening it – but what do you find when you do click on the link that promises to lead you to massive weight loss, money gain, and sexual supremacy?  In this week’s Inside Marketing we travel to the dark side – an exploration of the spammer’s side of the marketing spectrum.  The exercise need not be one of titillation or condescension, because much can be learnt from seeing everyday activities, such as marketing, in a different context.  In sociology it’s called cross-cultural comparisons, and every time we examine how overseas marketers are working in different contexts, we’re doing much the same thing.

Spam can fall into four broad categories:

1. Firstly, the purely money-gathering expeditions, such as the infamous Nigerian email cons or the ‘phishing’ expeditions used to get credit card or banking details from email recipients.  These work by sounding sincere, such as the Nigerian emails, or looking highly professional and credible.
    
2. Secondly, the sale of networks, contacts or people, typically sexual in nature but sometimes selling lists for would-be spammers (spammers spamming other spammers is a rich irony of course).  These are generally fairly crude – it doesn’t take much to sell ‘free sex’ after all.
    
3. Third, the selling of ‘named’ items such as name-brand watches, erectile dysfunction drugs, diet products or software.  These are usually simple affairs, because the brand name being sold is all that is necessary, and there is no indication that the items are counterfeit.  The sale need only be “brand name plus great price”.
    
4. The fourth spam category is the most interesting – when the items being sold are immediately subject to doubt.  The websites to which these spammers direct you to are works of art, utilizing almost every known device to convince you of their product’s worth.

Fastsize.com takes the corporate line, selling its penis enlargement products with medical facts, and a sincerity and website look that epitomizes corporate blue-chip. Complete with testimonials,  FAQs, research articles, newsletters, extension calculators and even the approval of doctor who comes complete with white coat and stethoscope.  The price, NZ$600, is a clear example of buying credibility.

Those behind Sizegenetics.com also have a white-coated doctor, and seem to be onto a winner with the term ‘genetics’.  Unfortunately they’ve used the term ‘traction’ for the extension device, which has unfortunate, although soundly medical, connotations. Again, after much “but wait, there’s more”, we learn the price is again around NZ$600,  which brings to mind whether some poor market research company has had to conduct pricing research on traction devices, volume pills and the like.

Most of the other enlargements are much the same – testimonials, guarantees, conference citations and serious doctors.  Many of these websites are part of the “Penis Enlargement Network”, whose website is full of credible clipart of blue ribbons, medals and magnifying glasses poring over learned journals.

On another subject, ReplicaCenter.com is not trying to fool anyone. The slick site is deadly serious when it states that their “goal is to offer you the most complete, accurate, and useful information on purchasing Rolex replicas and fake Rolex watches on the Internet”.  At least no one can accuse the company of hiding its intentions.  Ironically, whilst the site managers say they set up the website to stop replica-lovers from getting “ripped off”, they forgot that they’re promoting the “ripping off” of Rolex themselves.

The overall impression from these sites and others like them is that some very good marketers are operating in the nether-regions of cyberspace, and they can write extremely good copy, produce beautiful websites, and are perfectly capable of running affiliate programmes, loyalty schemes, online communities, accreditation networks and more. Clearly, the industries most prone to distrust and suspicion have the most to gain from good marketers, but whether marketers have much to gain from such associations is another question altogether.

Jonathan Dodd