Posts Tagged Ethics
eBrand Media Research: Morally gray marketers and the hideous advertising pollution they create!
Continuity programs have been around for years. Videoactivereport.com defines continuity programs this way: “An infomercial/DRTV product purchasing program that encourages consumers to purchase the first in a series of products, often for a lower-than-normal price, then continue purchasing the entire series for a higher price. Extensively used for music and book series. Concept also employed successfully for beauty, diet and self-development products.”
Given the limited, vanilla, definition; they apparently don’t want to step on any toes.
We discussed one of the most reprehensible continuity programs on the internet, and other types of continuity programs, in an article written on May, 22nd, 2008.
Most continuity programs use the “make sick, make well” marketing approach. They identify a mass audience pain points; wrinkles, yellow teeth, weight, debt, or a need for money and the ability to make transactions with a debit/credit card, and run campaigns that bring the pain, real or imagined from the background to the foreground of the consciousness. Pharmaceutical companies are real experts at making large segments of our society sick; with messaging like this: “Are you feeling depressed, lethargic, or irritable? Then you may be suffering from…”
Posted by eBrand Media Research Department in Ethics, Marketing on September 14th, 2009