I recently found two comments on my blog for Bayliner Discovery boats. Apparently, the company has hired someone to place a marketing pitch on the comments of blogs that are boating related. I have found the comment on Bonnie’s blog, Frogma, as well as Sherry’s blog, Stay of Execution. They’ve apparently attempted to post the comment to The Skip’s Blog as well.
The Skip has a pretty good post on it, and I’ll quote him here:
Seems to me that their advertising agency or marketing department took a wrong turn somewhere. Being in the industry, I try to dissuade my customers from disguising their real intent. Clever advertising creates a sense of intrigue not of mistrust. What comes to mind immediately when I read this copy was, they do not have enough faith in their product to sell it on it’s own merits, they need to rely on cheesy tricks and deception to create interest in their product. Makes me really think about who made the decisions to run this campaign and how competent they really are. And really makes me wonder whether I would trust anything this company has to say about it’s product.
Oh and by the way…Their marketers missed the boat literally, on this one. They assumed that all sailors are powerboaters. If they did a little more targeted research before blasting away aimlessly they may have realized that this blog is about sailing!
His point about them missing the boat is a very good one. Of the four blogs that I know about, which have been tagged or mentioned this comment, Bonnie’s is mainly about kayaking or human-powered small craft, with a bit of sailing thrown in; Sherry, Skip and I have sailing blogs.
Spam and comment spam is generally seen as a relatively unethical and underhanded marketing tactic, often used for illegitimate drugs, sexual organ enhancement and stock scams. I don’t know about you, but this is not the kind of association I would want for my company.
But, then again, maybe the quality of their boats is right up there with illegally imported Viagra and pump-and-dump stock scams—so maybe this is truth in advertising. Buyer beware.
My thoughts entirely. Cheesy, wrongly targeted and likely to be counter productive. They hit about.sailing.com too.
Haha, yeah, how true!
They hit my blog and Pat’s as well. What I found was interesting was that the commentspams mentioned a specific boat dealer in the LA area, and they all came from a particular salesperson. I wonder whether Bayliner knows there’s a renegade salesperson out there who is trashing the company’s reputation.
I certainly could never envision any circumstance under which I might buy a powerboat of any sort, but there might be sailors out there who also want a powerboat, amd this kind of advertising is likely to turn them against Bayliners.