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Murray Newlands is a blogger and marketer working both sides of the big pond
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Consumers Speak Up for Their Rights

Written on
Jan 13, 2010 
Author
Murray Newlands  |
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Consumers Speak Up for Their Rights

speakup_smallADOTAS – One hundred years ago you got your shopping or whatever from your local shop. If the goods and services were not up to standard and the service was lousy, the shop would close.

This was true of small towns but also metropolises as people traveled less even within cities. Sure there were people who traveled the country selling snake oil, but while some made a fortune others were literally strung up.

I see 2010 as the year consumers reclaim their rights. We just need major banks to pull out of processing rebilling offers, such as get a free diet pill or sign up now and we will charge you what we like forever. This was a nice little earner for lots of affiliates and lots of networks but no matter how you look at it, for consumers it was a bad deal.

There was a huge debate on Wickedfire with some affiliates who have being making a good living selling them in tears. Not only were these products shady, the billing was sketchy and the marketing methods deployed by some were even more “interesting.” Fortunately, some networks like Clickbooth are trying to help clean up the image of affiliate marketing.

President Obama and the Federal Trade Commission seem intent on cracking down on business practices that are obviously against consumers interests. But we should look at why this is: Consumers are becoming increasingly vocal.

Consumers are finding their voices and mobilizing using social media to put their “rights” on the agenda of the Obama administration, the FTC and the banks. Business will no longer be able to get away with practices that they once did. Consumers can set up a Facebook group or Twitter account and gather support for their grievance in ways that they never could before.

On the flip side there are opportunities to utilize consumers passions about company’s products and services to refer their friends to brands they like. Motivating consumers who like your company can give you a competitive advantage.

There are opportunities for affiliates and service companies to focus on that, such as using email marketing to target your consumers and motivating them to tweet about your product. Companies are searching for ways forward and experts who can show them the path, hence the success of industry figures like Chris Brogan.

Will you look for a site that sells freezers and allows you to compare shopping prices or will you look for reviews? As prices and features become increasingly homogenized and the richer consumers find prices differently and comparably irrelevant with their increased incomes, having goods that work because of more important recommendations count. Products that do not work will see poor reviews and fail.

Companies will be expected to have conversation with consumers not tell them what to think. The FTC will see that those reviews are not incentivized.





Reader Comments.

Your article is a joke, Clickbooth is trying to clean up the industry? LMFAO Clickbooth caused all of these problems by running continuity offers that had 2-4 forced upsells as part of the free trial.

Maybe Clickbooth is trying to clean it all up now that ALL of their advertisers were shut down for scamming consumers, and those advertisers cant pay them.

You should do some research before you write something. Adotas should also vet their writers out, another Dennis Yu in the making here, huh?

Posted by jason | 10:17 am on January 14, 2010.

If consumers now go to the vendors that offer value, then this will be a good move forward.

Posted by Lilach Bullock | 11:01 am on January 14, 2010.

I don’t agree with Murray pointing out publicly what any networks are or aren’t doing with compliance, but if you are any kind of industry insider then you know how hard it has been for a long time to get approved as an advertiser through Clickbooth’s ridiculously conservative compliance policies.

I remember they wouldn’t even let me run my products a year ago and I thought my compliance was solid. I’m still pissed about it!

Posted by Steve | 5:36 pm on January 15, 2010.

Interesting

Posted by axe | 6:44 pm on January 15, 2010.

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