Proud to Promote

[Donster]

I was reading the June issue of one of our local bass magazines. When I got to the "Trophy Wall Page" where all the readers catches are published, I saw a picture of a person on the right hand bottom corner holding a nice bass.

So then I read the 20words u are allowed to use to describe your catch.
It went somewhat like this...

My cousin and I went fishing on a private dam. In the two days we caught more than a 150 bass using X Baits. (We call it X for now)

Done. That is the description used for his catch. So I thought it is a little bit weird to promote a specific brand who u do not have any connections with. So a few pages on I saw a whole article of a new, or maybe new, or I don't know soft bait from X. And please don't get me wrong, witch I have no problem with. Every brand deserves a little bit of promotion from a (I would call it) a "public third party"

So then I went on Facebook today and saw the same picture same story published by the brand. This person is even an Ambassador for the brand..huh..

Now I would like to ask the Pro Staff members and Ambassadors, isn't that free advertising to the brand.

The bass mag should have had better discretion on deciding what photos and stories to publish. Because if I was a pro staff member I would send in 100's of photos of all my catches and promoting the new frog this or curly worm that.
Then there is no more pictures of proud moments and massive smiles - PERIOD :roll:

[Baarshaas]

Donster,

Are you a PI mate?Just to clarify...Is it the dishonesty that you are struggling to swallow or the fact that the mags should pay better attention to what is published rather than just try to fill pages?

Hope you are not promoting the bait here now, cause I am interested in finding out more about it :eusa_dance:

[Jim_From_Zim]

Are you referring to mine in the July Bass Digest?

You might as well spill the beans as to which post you are referring to.

[nutt]

Hi Donster
Welcome to the world of marketing, if in fact this was a planned marketing campaign then I take my hat off to whoever planned it because it sure is having the desired effect. Fortunately or Unfortunately depends on anyone’s viewpoint, the sport of competitive bass fishing wouldn’t exist without the companies who advertise their wares. Advertising has also changed over the centuries from word of mouth which was spread buy travellers who travelled from town to town, to a rather sophisticated science which involves anything from magazine advertising to facebook twitter and skywriting if that’s what your particular brand requires. Success for today’s advertisers is measured in one thing and one thing only and that is upper presence of mind i.e. if you survey 500 fisherman and 500 golfers and ask them to name (unassisted recall) one brand of lure and 80% of them answer Xcite baits, then your skills as an advertiser are remunerated amongst the highest in the world. If this was pure coincidence then even better for the brand concerned that a fisherman wants to align himself with your brand and if he takes it to the point that he publishes it on social media the all the better, the brand owners are then at liberty to use his publicised info as they see fit and they should capitalise on the opportunity. We could discuss this for hours and I could show you examples of where you have been coaxed in a direction to purchase one brand over another as well.

Cheers Nutt

[Riprap]

Argh man , post the picture so we can see who it is......? hehe.

[Donster]

Are you referring to mine in the July Bass Digest?

You might as well spill the beans as to which post you are referring to.

Firstly I would like to say that I was referring to a June issue and not any July issue. And I do not have anything against Bass Digest because I get the mag for free and im very thankfull for that. I dont feel the need to elaborate any further on this.

Donster,

Are you a PI mate?Just to clarify...Is it the dishonesty that you are struggling to swallow or the fact that the mags should pay better attention to what is published rather than just try to fill pages?

Hope you are not promoting the bait here now, cause I am interested in finding out more about it :eusa_dance:

I thought that a trophy wall is there to have your kodak moment and brag about your catch. I do not even have a problem if somebody said he caught it on a Yamamoto senko. I bet u there would been other photos for them to choose from. The brand got its moment a few pages on.

Nutt I fully agree with u. Brands get more than enough space in magazine's to promote their products. If all the ambassadors started using the trophy wall then its another marketing page. And anybody just fishing for fun would never have his moment in the mag.

Lastly referring to the brand as X was maybe a little bit mis guiding. As it is very close to a current brand. I just used X as that I did not want to mention any names. Lets rather call is Y baits.

[Ninja]

I think this is stretching things a bit. If I can remember when by previous best of 4.75kg was published in the SA Bass members' catches section they used my write-up as is, real and line brands as well as the lure. That was more than 7 years ago so it is nothing new. Just chill and fish. :blue-badgrin:

[Riprap]

Which magazine.............only one is free? We can be thankful that we get it free as the advertising pays for our pleasure of reading it online!

[Navrik]

Love it when we move from Bait X to Xcite Baits.

Looks like Roy, Floatie, Pieter, Freddie and I are earning our keep. Team BWG rocks hard :blue-biggrin:

Take note WebBrent :blue-cool:

And I bet it wasn't even one of us in the June issue

[Jim_From_Zim]

I'm not sure if Donster is being genuine, trying to start a mud slinging match or perhaps trying to dictate to any editors what they can or cant post in their respective magazines?

But from my side, as a brand ambassador, I try not to advertise for free on this forum (or the other one for that matter) as the company is not a paid up advertiser as is the case with O365 and BWG for an example.

With regards to any magazine publications that I might do from time to time, thats for the editors choice to ask me to write about a specific lure/excursion/brand. So its not really my choice should I write an article.

But honestly, most brand ambassadors that are at the top of their game dont like to 'brag' about their catches, their 100's of fish they catch on a specific day using a specific lure etc. 9 out of 10 times they let the results of competitions speak for themselves.

By the way, have we not been down this road before on the same subject? If I recall it was a seriously heated debate?

[Riprap]

Come on okes, play nice..........

[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]

[Frogstar]

Hi Donster

i have not seen the AD that you are talking about but if it is true it is known as "astroturfing" in the AD world (google it). Basically an avert campaign that makes something seem like it is spontaneous/coincidence when in actual fact it is a well planned marketing campaign.

It is one of the worst marketing techniques you can use as it is in poor taste, insults its targeted audience by lying to them and leaves a seriously negative impact on the brand it is representing.

Cell C tried this with their Trevor Noah campaign. Just google "Cell C Astroturfing" there are a number of links showing how bad it turned out for them.

Or read here: http://memeburn.com/2010/08/cell-c-is-as...at-a-joke/