The bad effect on the image of the company may have the unethical WOMM practices.
Nowadays customers are very sensitive and don’t like to be bothered by false information. Faking WOMM is not only ineffective but also unethical. Many marketers reject all tactics leading to deception, dishonesty or manipulation.
There are certain WOMM strategies that are considered unethical. Word of Mouth
Marketing Association as unethical lists these bellow:
- Spam - Sending bulk or unsolicited email or other messages without clear, voluntary permission.
- Comment spam - Using automated software ('bots') to post unrelated or inappropriate comments to blogs or other online communities.
- Shilling - Paying people to talk about (or promote) a product without disclosing that they are working for the company; impersonating a customer.
- Stealth marketing - Any practice designed to deceive people about the involvement of marketers in a communication.
- Defacement - Vandalizing or damaging property to promote a product.
- Falsification - Knowingly disseminating false or misleading information.
- Infiltration - Using fake identities in an online discussion to promote a product; taking over a web site, conversation, or live event against the wishes or rules set by the proprietor.
Many of you probably have come across some of the unethical WOMM strategies. I personally hate getting spam to my e-mail.
What are your thoughts about unethical WOMM practices?
How often are you bothered by them?
Do they influence your attitude towards the company and its product?
I think SPAM is not so unethical. I guess everybody hates it including me, but unethical is strong word. The same about comment spam, but with rest of examples I'd agree.
ReplyDeleteI guess everybody meets sometimes with that kinds of WOMM, especially spam (but since gmail is cool I don't have to worry).
First of all unethical ways makes people angry instead of interested so othen they don't even watch what is mail about which is probably better for producent, because if they see the product they will have bad association in the future and it may be daunted to buy the product.
If this kind of advertisement has so bad sides why it still works? I think because it's cheap. Generally adverts in the internet are much cheaper that in other environments. For me it's still unjustifiable, but probably if it still exists it means some people fall for it and companies earn enough to continue bad habit.
Companies will do all it takes to promote they products and raise sells. It is all about money.
ReplyDeleteIf startegy is working, even it is unethical, it is still a good strategy. I know that anyone will not like to be mislead, but until it is allowed, this kind of stategy will be used.
Me too, I don't like getting spam to my e-mail but I think we need to get used to it :) About womm I can say that sooner or later the fraud always come to light. It is difficult to build confidence and very easy to destroy it so I just have hope that the womm won't use these strategies to build trust between customers and brand.
ReplyDeleteI'm in the market for a new laptop for quite some time. When I have something in my sights I usually read comments and reviews about it. Most of them look like this:
ReplyDelete#1: "great notebook, worth every penny"
#2: "waste of money, I see no positive ides of buying it"
#3: "I'm very satisfied with this laptop"
#4: "It's breaking down all the time"
After reading things like this I'm looking for something else. It's not only about notebooks, have you ever read opinions about hotels? Impossible to pick anything after reading them..
I'm almost sure most of the bad reviews are issued by competitiors but on the other side most of the good ones can be issued by the product manufacturer.
One huge mistification.
Well I have e-mail account on Gmail and I don't receive SPAM (almost everything is properly filtered and goes to spam folder).
ReplyDeleteI have heared about this shilling, that some companies selling clothes do this. They select some people (with criteria known only to them, or without any criteria) and they give them a lot of clothes and everything such person need to do is to just wear them and distinguish somehow from the crowd (like some specific behaviour etc.).
1. I hate them of course. Now we need to be very careful on this type of methods as thy are more and more clever. Often, our personal data is grabbed eg. by using Facebook apps.
ReplyDeleteThere are programs that simulate, a virus infecting your computer and try to sell you an anti-virus program. These methods, in particular, are targeted to less experienced Internet users. However it is more and more difficult to distinguish truth from fraud.
2. I have no problem with a lot of spam because I use gmail and I create a filter always when I repeatedly receive some messages. However, sometimes when I use tools like YouTube to MP3 Converter I'm attacked by pop-ups, but it is natural in some cases. Quite often I am spammed on facebook and it's hard for me to automatically get rid of this spam.
2. Mostly those methods are used by little known company's which count on short-term profits.
I fully agree with you. I reckon that sending personified email which says it is to you and you only, from normal account such as Jan.Kowalski@gmail.com with information about new washing machine is an extreme rudeness. There is no way to find out it is a spam without opening an email. It is even more frustrating than getting tones of emails with penis enlargement offers.
ReplyDeleteAs I can read the most of us have to deal with unwanted spam in mailbox. I have the same problem. I receive more spam than 'real' mails. It can be frustrating sometimes.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion this kind of practices discourages people to buy the product, so the effect is opposite than company was expected.
I really hate all those kinds of advertising which are listed as unethical. Actually I didn't know that spam qualifies as a word of mouth marketing. I really value the opinion of people who I know, all kinds of comments and opinions on the Web are rather just hints, not the best proofs that a product is worth buying.
ReplyDeleteI rather try to keep my personal details, email address, mailing address secret so I'm not too often bothered by this kind of marketing.
I really hate companies which are sending their offers too frequently, and certainly they harm their image this way, at least from my point of view. On the other hand some newsletters are useful, for example airline ticket offers, where the time of purchase is crucial to spend less. The key is to not overwhelm the potential customer and send him or her only as relevant offerings as possible.
Spam, spam, spam...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8huXkSaL7o
The todays World is all about spam ;) mistification and unethical marketing practices.
You wouldn't believe how many products' comments come from shilling companies. I don't really know a web sites today you can 100% trust.
Efficiency is the number one priority in today's business. Andd everyone plays a bit dirty to be successful.
I do not like when companies send to me a lot of spam. It is very annoying and unnecessary. Usually, I pay attention to the manipulation and therefore decided not to be interested in advertising and recommendations of others. I'm tired of business activities aimed at creating my needs - artificial needs. Such actions of companies make me not to buy their products BECAUSE discourage ME.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, we are guilty that we get too much SPAM in our mail boxes. Thoughtlessly served our emails to different sites thanks to that the company can send us unwanted advertisement.
ReplyDeleteHow it looks on Facebook ? For example we are click, I like it” button -"X "company can send us unwanted advertisement. We are giving them legally access. It`s very enormous risk to our personal data and sometimes can steal our secret passwords. To avoid many unlike mails I created special mailbox which I use to registration for example
Many companies use some unethical tabs to get customers even if they lie. They apply special marketing tactics to influence on your mind to convince potencial customers to buy their products. I have this kind of advertisment and i think it should be prohibited.
ReplyDelete