Talk about Misleading Users
03 March 2008 – 3:55 pmWe affiliate marketers have spent the past week noodling the concept of undisclosed links and duping users thanks to the keynote address at Affiliate Summit.
Being a newly converted gmail user, I grabbed this screenie this morning.
That’s a damn creative advert, but deceptive, no?
Reminds me of the old drive-by download trickery from the spyware guys like WhenU:
Great ROI in that campaign, I bet, reunion.com. What’s the matter, Google doesn’t allow the blink tag?
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12 Responses to “Talk about Misleading Users”
I agree, damn creative. I saw it too and on one level was impressed. But dammit, that’s the kind of thing that makes the JCs of the world stand up and lambaste us.
And I still run into people that have that spyware download show up on their machines. One woman was still running Win98!
By Chris O'Byrne on Mar 3, 2008
i cant imagine that sort of thing does much for there branding.
By David Deangelo on Mar 4, 2008
LOL at “the blink tag”
By Vlad on Mar 4, 2008
scott, i have the flu, so am a lil slow on the uptake today. second screenshot about time and whenu is from your archives of yesteryear’s deceptive shitake. And today’s highlighted spam scam slam is that little line that says “Unread Message (1)” stuff… is that a google adwords ad built to look like it’s something other than an ad? If I’m getting it right (sorry, don’t use gmail yet), shame on reunion.com, but serious shame on G themselves.
Since when does “Unread Message (1)” qualify as a good ad title?
Hideously good find.
By Pat Grady on Mar 4, 2008
Sorry, I wrote this one in a bit of a rush, I could have been more clear.
But even in an influenza-induced stupor you’re sharp enough to pick up on this stuff.
That’s exactly what it is. That’s Gmail’s advertising spot right there where the arrow’s pointing to.
By Scott on Mar 4, 2008
Oh man, that was a clever advertising to include that in Gmail. I guess nobody would be caution enough to know it’s an advert.
By Gary Ooi on Mar 5, 2008
There’s no surprise to it i think. Everyday they will find a way to get the users. It’s all about advertising. They have to be creative or else theres no advertisement.
By mac on Mar 5, 2008
cool blog got a new site
http://www.digitalempireshop.com
By Remove Adware Components on Mar 6, 2008
Good find Scott - and the comparison is very good. Over the years we have seen some pretty deceptive practices being called “creative marketing” at times. In a world where conversion doesn’t matter…all the ads have to do is makes someone click.
I tried to dig up an old speech I gave a few years ago, cause I had pictures of some good examples similar to what you have… but couldn’t find it… the premise though was about deceptive ads and some examples… off the top of my head I remember:
“Click here you are a winner”
“Your computer may be infected with a virus, click here”
Ads that are designed to look exactly like a Windows System popup, where the “X” in the top right corner doesn’t close the ad, but instead clicks through to an ad.
These ads tend to find their way onto popuplar sites like “Lyrics”, “music downloads”…. things where the amount of traffic is very high - but where better marketing methods such as Affiliate Marketing do not work very well due to the intention of the user (come to site, get lyric, leave)… So these sites often use Ad Networks to monetize - leaving the Advertiser to try to come up with ways to increase click thru count.
I found a few examples just by browsing around - but didn’t want to post them here didn’t know if you wanted them - so posted on my blog you can take a look if you want. If you browse around on sites like the ones that I mentioned above though, you’ll see plenty of your own examples…. and not suprisingly they are served very often by the same 2 Ad networks…
Anyhow - I agree with you - both Google and Reunion.com should be way above this… considering Google already has a “deceptive ad” policy for PPC ads.
By Brian Littleton on Mar 8, 2008
I’m really annoyed at ads like these. It’s ads that I’d never click, but I know people who are gullible enough fall for it all the time. What is really scary is that many of the things linked to can be trojans or other forms of malware.
By Shantanu Bala on Mar 9, 2008
I hate that kind of ads. it is not only misleading but totally wasting my precious time thinking that I do actually have a new email waiting for me to read then only to realised it is an ad.
By Fight Videos on May 13, 2008