Viral marketing the viral marketing

Viral marketing
I received this email today from a person named “Colleen” using my blog’s contact page. It reads,

I have found myself reading your blog (http://istartedsomething.com/) and really enjoy your take on things. I wanted to know what you thought about this site, http://www.nowwhat.com. I totally think they had the right idea in mind when creating this campaign since they are trying to hit a younger demographic. Being an avid blogger, I thought you might have a good opinion. Check it out and let me know what you think? I also found out it has a really cool feature that you can prank your friends with. If you click on the red devil on the site, you can send disasters to your friends. You can have the screen look like it’s on fire, or cockroaches take over the screen, it’s pretty cool. Anyway just thought I would share…I thought it was cool and you can’t really see it right when you sign on. Check it out if you haven’t seen it! Well, hope all is going well! Have a good one.

NowWhat.comI thought, “Wow neat, someone enjoys reading my blog.” Then I checked out the nowwhat.com site (as pictured left), not too shabby. And just as I was writing the review of the website, I noticed Colleen’s email address, it was @mindcomet.com. After a little Googling, MindComet is the company behind PayPerPost, the ‘blogger soul snatchers‘.

The unthinkable just happened. A legitimate viral marketing company has just spammed me to write about their viral marketing campaign for State Farm Insurance. Apparently they have even ‘vandalized’ the streets of Seattle to promote NowWhat.com.

If MindComet had gone through legitimate channels and actually offered to pay me to write reviews, then my opinion towards this viral marketing campaign would be different. But blatantly spamming me imitating the tone of a concerned reader is unacceptable. Colleen, when you said “I totally think they had the right idea”, you mean your company, right?

Sorry MindComet, you’ve gone too far.

6 insightful thoughts

  1. oh yeee baby:) I also enjoy this blog, but I don’t spam you with things like: check my website or buy my product;)

  2. Wow… good detective work… they’re no doubt wishing you were on their payroll now, lol.

    Great site… still trying to find a post here somewhere about voice recognition software (at least I clicked on a link on someone’s blog and ended up here!), but got side-tracked among all the other interesting stuff!

    I’ll be back…

    Cheers,

    Susan

  3. Nice sleuthing work. The email sounded blatant and covert.

    But I am also intrigued by your remark “If MindComet had gone through legitimate channels and actually offered to pay me to write reviews, then my opinion towards this viral marketing campaign would be different”.

    If you would do this, then your double standard at pointing a finger at them is a bit pompous, don’t you think?

  4. Blink: I have nothing against viral marketing, so if they didn’t try to fool me into writing about it, then I wouldn’t have a problem with it. I’m only concerned about their tactics, not their viral campaigns.

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