Pepsi fails miserably at viral marketing attempt

Corporations are always trying to figure out to take advantage of the power of online viral buzz. They see regular folks posting random videos of themselves or others and watch the Youtube hits skyrocket into the millions with little effort. For some reason though, when a corporation tries it, it often falls flat on its face. The reason is this: for a video to become a viral hit, it usually has to be genuine and not staged, like the kid who was stoned after his visit to the dentist. They didn't tell the kid to act woozy and pretend like he just juiced up at the dentist office - he really was doped up and was not playing it up for the camera with dreams of becoming an internet sensation. That's why it was loved by many, and that's why it fails miserably when corporations try to get it on the act.

The latest attempt comes from Pepsi, in their efforts to get the word out about Pepsi Max. The premise is this: professional NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon disguises himself and plays the role of a guy who doesn't know much about cars but is looking for a new ride. He and the car salesman meet outside and they decide to test drive a new Chevy Camaro. At first Jeff Gordon acts like he barely knows how to drive - doing the "stop/start" routine that 15 year-olds do when they drive their parent's car for the first time. He then lets loose and takes off like a lunatic, racing around the dealership, making maneuvers only a skilled driver could pull off, almost giving the car salesman a heart attack. 


This would have been quite a hoot, except for the fact that it was completely staged. And not staged well. The car salesman, if he even was a real car salesman, was clearly in on it and the dialogue was obviously scripted. Somehow Pepsi had something to do with this - oh yeah, that's the hidden cam. The Pepsi can cam. But why do you need a hidden cam when everyone involved is getting paid to produce a viral ad?

What annoys us the most about these types of stunts is that they're actually good ideas most of the time. Why didn't they just do it for real? The genuineness of the salesman would have really shown through and it would have been extremely entertaining and viral. Instead, we get this fake, staged, watered down pathetic attempt at creating buzz which should be embarrassing for everyone involved. 

Evidently it did fool one poor soul though, Chris Chase from the USA Today Sports section. He wrote of the "success" of the marketing stunt and took it on face value as being real. After readers pointed out to him that the stunt was completely staged, he added:

I've been recently told I'm a wet blanket when it comes to evaluating the legitimacy of viral videos, so I'll keep my opinions about this one to myself. 

Either way, the salesman should have been suspicious when "Mike" put an unopened Pepsi Max in the cup holder. That's always a sign things are about to get nuts.

Barf! If that guy isn't on the Pepsi pay roll already, he should be. 

School turns to advertising on report cards for revenue

With the economy being in the state that it's been for the past few years, people and businesses have had to get creative when it comes to making ends meet. Schools have also been experiencing financial setbacks as well, including the Jefferson County school district in Colorado which is currently facing $70 million in budget cuts. But the folks at Jefferson County have come up with a plan to make up for at least some of those cuts: advertisements on report cards.

From denver.cbslocal.com:

Some parents in Jefferson County won’t only see their child’s grades on their report cards. They’ll also see advertising.
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The ad will appear along the bottom of every elementary school report card for the next three years.

Is it wrong to mix capitalism and advertising with our public education system? Some seem to think this is crossing the line. To alleviate concerns, the school district has currently restricted the advertising to a nonprofit organization known as CollegeInvest. But what's to come in the future, will we be seeing Coke and Pepsi ads on report cards further down the line?

One thing that doesn't seem quite right is the discrepancy between the budget cuts the school is facing and the amount of money these ads are going to pull in, which is a puny $30,000 a year. $30,000 a year is less than the average teacher makes, so....great, these ads on the report cards won't even cover 1 teacher's salary and will barely scratch the surface of the $70 million they're facing in budget cuts. Is it really worth all the bitching and moaning? I say if you're going to do this, go all out. Let's get all kinds of advertising up and down the hallways of the school - advertisers can bid on specific spots, some areas going for more due to the amount of foot traffic. And how about those school buses? City buses have long earned revenue by putting ads on the sides and backside, how about schools doing the same?

And it begs an interesting question, are advertisements harmful to kids? Are they really harmful to anyone? We live in a capitalistic society and as much as we look at advertising as something evil, many of the services we take for granted depend on it almost entirely. I say let's give it a shot, just as long as we don't have advertising reps swarming into schools the way we see the pharmaceutical reps in the doctors offices.

Penn State sex abuse scandle: the column 6 months ago that turned out to be right

The shocking revelations that former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky had been molesting young boys in a Penn State locker room has turned things upside down for Penn State this week and has ended the career of coach Joe Paterno. But while most were finding out about the coverup for the first time this week, one columnist, radio host Mark Madden, wrote about a possible Penn State sex scandal coverup 6 months ago and it has turned out to be very accurate.

From timesonline.com (dated Apr 4 2011):

Allegations of improper conduct with an underage male first surfaced in 1998, while Sandusky was still employed by Penn State. That incident allegedly occurred in a shower at Penn State's on-campus football facility. No charges were filed.

Best-case scenario: Charges are never brought, and Sandusky walks away with his reputation permanently scarred. The rumors, the jokes, the sideways glances - they won't ever stop. Paterno and Penn State do the great escape.

Unfortunately this turned out to be exactly what did happen. And it's interesting to note the comments written back when the article was written in April:



It just goes to show how hard it is for those trying to get the truth out when sexual abuse takes place. Everyone immediately defends the accused and points fingers at the accuser. We wonder if michael5148 will be renewing his subscription now.

Youtube's Recommended Channels: WTF?

RussiaToday, Old Spice and Alex Jones? Really guys? Anyone else keep seeing these same channels being recommended? I can't think of one reason why anyone would be interested in an Old Spice deodorant Youtube channel. I've been seeing this one for months actually. Either Old Spice paid Youtube some big money to be prominently displayed as a recommended channel, or Youtube is trying to tell me something about my personal hygiene.

And Russia Today....at the bottom it says these recommendations are based on my watch history, shared videos, and other channel subscriptions. I can't think of anything I've been watching lately that has anything remotely to do with Russia, though perhaps I could use one of those Russian mail order brides. Alex Jones, I'm crazy enough as it is I don't need any more help, thanks.

"Wise Health Insurance" Bullsh** Marketing

Have you heard of Wise Health Insurance? Me neither, until recently. I was reading an article on Yahoo News about how golfer Camilo Villegas was disqualified from the PGA golf tournament for moving debris out of the way while his ball was rolling back towards him. I was bored and combing through the comment section when I see this:

I was told by a friend that something called "Wise Health Insurance" is offering health insurance plans starting just $1 a day. That is some thing we all can agree.

Gee really? Well that's cool and all...but what does that have to do with Camilo Villegas being disqualified? Wait a minute here, is a health insurance company really paying someone to spam the comment section pretending to be some random dude that heard from a friend how great this insurance company is? I mean that can't be true, that's way too pathetic.

So I decided to do a google search on: I was told by a friend that "Wise Health Insurance"
and it turns out that yes this company really is that pathetic.


See the results for yourself. Page after page of bullshit fake word-of-mouth spamming by someone being paid by Wise Health Insurance. The next time someone tells you about a friend that got a deal from Wise Health Insurance, you tell them to shove it up their ass.


Update:

We have reason to believe that this may not just be your normal insurance company that just so happens to be a spammer. We're doing everything we can to investigate this so-called company that calls itself Wise Health Insurance. If you or anyone you know has ever dealt with this company or person who purports to be this company, please let us know about your experience. If you've been ripped off or knows someone who has, please let us know and also contact the authorities. When a company or person does everything they can to hide their true identity, that raises a red flag for us. And there's a difference between someone just selling some T-shirts and an insurance company. We don't need to know everything about the guy selling you a shirt on the corner. You give him $20, you get the shirt and you're on your way. With insurance we're talking about important financial and personal information that's being given out and trust is a much more important factor. So when you have someone asking for confidential information yet hides everything about themselves, that gives us great cause for concern.

Websites owned by this same guy that we know of:

wisehealthinsurance.com
stephenaustininsurance.com
HypersonicWeightLoss.com

Phone numbers used:

512-587-2229 we called, got a msg saying temporarily out of service (512 is Austin TX)
916-218-8317 we called, got a generic voicemail greeting (916 is Sacramento CA)
877-275-0526
877-769-3008

Based on other information, we believe this spammer/possible scammer is originally from the Sacramento area and recently moved to Austin, TX.

Address listed in their domain whois and other places:

700 Lavaca Street
Suite #1407
Austin, Texas 78701

(This is an office building with various businesses)

An internet detective over at dietchoices.com stumbled on this company when they had a weight loss diet scam to gather information on its victims. They found that "the Texas Secretary of State has no records of any current or past entities with names similar to "Stephen Austin Insurance Company" or "Wise Health Insurance." And then added that "the addresses listed are in the 15-story 700 Lavaca building, which mostly rents space to professionals like attorneys and accountants. It is owned by the city of Ausin, Texas, and we are contacting the building managers to try to figure out who is in Suites 1400 and 1407, the two suites listed in various sources for the company.)" We are still waiting work back to see if we can find anymore information about who is behind this all.

All 3 websites are currently down at this moment, which is a recent development. The Wise Health Insurance page and Stephen Austin Insurance site were still up not long ago and are still available to see on Google and Yahoo cache. Combined with their phone lines being down, this appears to be some sort of hit and run operation, where they scam as many people as they can, then take off without a trace. We're attempting to look into this as much as we can and post about it here so others can find it and hopefully be able to provide further information.


Update 2: The Insurance websites appear to be back up, but he's replaced the 512 # with another one: 877-769-3008 under the contact section.

iwearyourshirt.com: The Dumbest Idea Since Unsliced Bread

More and more lately we here at People Liking People keep hearing about some new and exciting website called iwearyourshirt.com. This "buzz" is obviously contrived and the result of some sort of viral marketing campaign by the guys running it because there's no way this thing is ever going to get off the ground. I guess we'll give them a little credit for trying, but they'd be better off trying something more worthwhile.

iwearyourshirt.com has a handful of employees and it's their job to wear the shirts. They're hoping that small businesses trying to get their name out will be willing to fork over cash for their t-shirt wearers to wear their logo for a day, or however many days the company pays for. The way they price their t-shirt wearing service is pretty screwy: starting on January 1st of the year it cost $5, January 2nd it's $10, January 3rd it's $15, and the cost keeps going up in increments of $5 every day all the way to December 31 where it's $1,825. Apparently these folks don't just wear the shirt of your choice, they'll be posting youtube clips, blogging about their sponsors and various attention whoring activities.

Here's why the business model is full of fail:

It won't work financially for the employees. The amount of money earned by one of these shirt wearing guys is without a doubt going to end up being less $$ a year than your average McDonalds employee. Why don't you just get a job and make a real living?

There's nothing special about some random guy wearing your t-shirt. How about I just wear my own shirt for free?

A small handful of people wearing your logo on their shirt for a couple days out of a year, in a sea of 300+ million people will have absolutely no effect on anyone's bottom line or exposure and the return on investment will be pretty close to zero. You'd get much more mileage out of it if you just went around handing your business logo t-shirts out to random people. At least then there's a good chance they'll continue to wear that shirt for months to come. Whereas with these pricks, they wear it for that day you paid for and then throw it away afterward.

Their pricing scheme doesn't take into account any type of supply & demand. They set the price in stone for the whole year, sit back and hope people are willing to pay those rates. In the earlier months of the year they'll be selling themselves short at prices under $100, even if people are willing to pay much more. And in the last couple months they may have a hard time finding anyone willing to pay over $1,000.

Lastly, the #1 reason this will fail:



This is the guy that'll be wearing the shirts. I could see a company actually paying him NOT to wear their logo around, fearing consumers would associate this clown with their company and products.

Bottom line: stop whoring yourselves out and get a real job. This one isn't going to work out anyway.

I personally like this line here in their how-it-works section:

2011 days are sold at +$5 per day.Just like 2009 and 2010, the price will start small and increase daily. January 1 is $5, January 2 is $10, January 3 is $15 and the price continues to increase by $5 each day until December 31, 2011.

No, really guys! This is serious, see? We did the same thing in 2009 and 2010. This isn't just like some make believe thing we just came up with out of our ass!

Turbotax Marketing Disaster

Wow this is really pathetic and sad. The tax preparation software company Turbotax is using washed up never-have-beens to promote their brand on Youtube. I was just checking some videos on youtube this morning when I see this ad in the top right corner:

Tay Zonday? That guy's still around trying to make a buck? Alright you can't blame a guy for trying to squeeze out every ounce of coin from his fame, I'd do the same. I guess what's more shocking is that companies are still paying him money to promote their brand as if he were a legitimate pop icon with the power to persuade the masses. And talk about a confused message. What the hell does Tay Zonday have to do with doing your taxes?

So I click on the ad and it takes me to a music video of Tay Zonday singing about Turbotax in a song called "Freeloader Nation". Oh apparently there is some sort of contest...something about rapping about how great Turbotax is and wait a minute, what the fuck is that Vanilla Ice? Oh God.


If Tay Zonday and Vanilla Ice together don't spell PR disaster, I don't know what will. Whoever thought up this idea should be canned immediately. And poor Vanilla Ice, how degrading. Look at this silly hat they made him wear:


What follows is the winning video by some guy calling himself cpulfer, and a phone call made to him by Vanilla Ice himself letting him know he had won. The prize was $25,000. I wonder how much they paid Ice, Tay, and Youtube. This is just sad all around.

By the way, most people don't even need to bother with these tax programs. You can easily file online through the IRS's website. They offer a service called Free File Fillable Forms where you can fill out the necessary forms yourself online and submit them for free.