Egads! Paramount stealth-marketers?
 

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...hreadid=233188

Does this sort of thing happen often? Yeesh! Thanks for trying to control such stuff...

Does discussion of this phenom belong here in feedback? Or in Other? Makes me wonder how many phonies we've got on the web, trying to artificially create buzz for this or that... I understand Blue Crush had its share of steath-marketers...

They are out there and we do what we can to catch them. The post was brought to our attention by a member who felt it was spam, we checked the IP and sure enough it came from Paramount, I sent an email to the poster and CC'd our contact at Paramount so he is aware of the post.

First at Rotten Tomatoes, and now DVD Talk... IS NOTHING SACRED?!!?

That's terrible. I'm getting mad as I sit here eating my delicious Bando brand Potato Chips, which are available in fine food stores across the country. If I weren't enjoying these Bando brand Potato Chips so much, I'd write a protest letter to Paramount right now!

Perhaps I will - after I finish my Bando brand Potato Chips, of course!

Re: Egads! Paramount stealth-marketers?
 

I'm not an employee of Universal, but I loved Blue Crush. :D

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...hreadid=229122

Same guy? The text is pretty similar.

Are the extras on the Star Trek 2 DVD so crappy that they have to resort to spamming forums?

I've emailed my contact at Paramount. Will follow up with them tommorow. This is uacceptable

:lol: rotfl :lol:

So this explains why we get such lackluster DVDs from them...

They're too busy spamming DVDTalk.

Way to go Paramount!

Hint: If you took an interest in what the posters of this forum were discussing/complaining about :) instead of spamming, perhaps you wouldn't have to resort to such backhanded tactics. Your product would speak for itself.

:up: Geoff Kleinman posts another winner! DVDTalk is this year's hottest new website!

David Manning

They're not just at DVD Talk either. :mad:

What I love is how the posts by the stealth marketers strive to imitate "Internet style" with poor grammar and misspellings, yet they always seem to not quite get it right and it comes off too calculated to believe. Too funny.

From the poster in question:

I think it sounds great. I can leave with some alterations to the Superman mythology....IMO it sounds liek it could kick some serious ass.

Now, nobody is going to actually type "leave" when they mean "live" even if they're semi-illiterate.

:lol: That was my first thought. Do they read? Paramount of all studios. Too funny.

Yeah, they would be much better off actually reading the content in the threads for Grease, Major League, Better Off Dead, and Star Trek. Or -- gasp! -- even participating? Maybe then they would get a stronger sense of what people actually want instead of trying to hawk some silly promo contest or ISP...

By the way, if the shills are still reading -- contact the programming department at UPN and get them to pick up Farscape for season 5! ;)

And give us uncut Friday the 13ths ferchristsake!

Those chips taste like shoes....New Balance, to be specific. :yack:

http://www.ameritech.net/users/dvdtalk/rome.gif

rotfl

I don't necessarily agree with that. Mistakes happen.

Case and point (see my first post in that thread). And I like to consider myself at least semi-literate. :)

:lol: rotfl :lol:


How the hell does that happen?

I think scott27's a stealth marketer!

The first thing I do when I get up in the morning is go to weather.com and take a look at the weather map, also called surface map, in preperation of having to forecast later in the day. Obviously I was thinking of the surface map when I wanted to type circus, and I mistyped it. Still can't believe I did it twice in the same post, though.

Still pretty damn funny though, even with that logical explanation.

Yep. The jig is up. After 2+ years as a member of this forum, you guys have finally unveiled my secret. Good work.

:D

Oh. OK.
[backs slowly away from Scott27]

rotfl

rotfl rotfl

shill Pronunciation Key (shl) Slang
n.
One who poses as a satisfied customer or an enthusiastic gambler to dupe bystanders into participating in a swindle.

v. shilled, shill·ing, shills
v. intr.
To act as a shill.

v. tr.
To act as a shill for <b>(a deceitful enterprise)</b>.
To lure (a person) into a swindle.

So of course I had to try out http://www.shill.com! It has nothing to do with shilling but it sure is funny!

By the way, can I mention that sometimes traditional advertising is very effective, for example that "dvdovernight" right-side banner that appears in DVD reviews here. I think I've clicked on it about ten million times.

Jah-Wren Ryel seems to have a good idea here:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...6&pagenumber=2

ie, write it into the membership agreement that they open themselves up to a lawsuit if they shill.

Sue?!?

What is the damages that Kleinman.com suffers? How do you quantify?

And also, fighting with a movie studio is ok, I guess. But going to war (suing) is not smart in the entertainment industry, I would assume.

This might be a stretch, but Kleinman.com makes its money form us users using his site right? We users like his site because we can find out new info about disks, and how they are received by other users of the site. When you have people from a company come to the site and post things that do nothing but makes their releases look great this site will lose some of the respect that it has because we users do not know if it is a real post by a person, or some "advertisement". That is the problem with the whole thing. I want real views of a disk, not to be fed some line from a corp. If I have to go to some other site to get this info kleinman.com loses.

I agree - sue! This is like the fake movie review quotes.

Hmm -- I think it's a federal crime using the internet to try to defraud the public into buying Paramount/Earthlink service. Sounds like wire fraud to me. Tell Paramount that if they don't make it up to the management and the users we may have to consider going to court. Can you say "punitive damages and public embarrassment"? I thought you could.

A couple of free DVDs per registered user might be a fair settlement.

I'd settle for them not charging SE prices for barebones discs.

it's not to hard to find out if they are just shilling or if they are legit. let me explain, My name is jackskeleton.. now what if you see my status as new member and you read my post as followed:

Hey gang, I don't know much about dvd's, but I do know that I love nightmare before christmas. Man this movie rocks so much!!!!11 I can't wait to go to disneyland to see there new attraction why don't you guys check it out at www.disney.com!!!! tell me what you think and all, I'm taking all my Cool friends!



Now, wasn't that a bit obvious? these guys are making it too easy for the big G to pick off. they are just asking for trouble, they should have the guts to advertise the right way.

Jack I think you need to reread tjr2mentals post. :D

The sad thing Jack is I would expect you to say somthing like that relating to The Nightmare Before Christmas. ;)

Jack doesn't read posts, he scans the first 3 words (like I do most the time). For example, his reply to your post will most like be "I think too, but that doesn't make you a genieous joltaddict."

;) :D

Oh come now, I atleast make some sense.. Well I hope I do. :(

Jack's a stealth marketer. He's got to be. His post count isn't due to pads, it's because he's been shilling for the man all this time. Burn the heretic.

[annoyinglycheerful]
Turn that FROWN upside DOWN!
[/annoyinglycheerful]

I just meant you were arguing with him but his post was actually agreeing with you. :)