Valueclick is currently running this ad on their network.
Classy. Hey, when you want people to sign up to get spammed*, you have to inflame them. And what the hell, it is just a murdered child, surely that is fair game right?
To be honest, we used to use valueclick/fastclick on our sites. They served cpm/cpc ads. But since valueclick and fastclick merged, they have gone down hill. From countless posts like this one, about dropping rates, to numerous accusations of trojan installs. Life just isn’t easy being a scumbag these days…
How conflicted is Valueclick? Valueclick owns Commission junction. On commission junction, they forbid the use of 180 Solutions/Zango to advertise their merchants (or at least they did), while they ban it there, they actually promote Zango using their valueclick/fastclick division. And the CJ side even warned merchants of shady CPA networks using companies like 180 solutions/zango… which maybe they only had issues if they didn’t signup by clicking on their own ad… or something. if you are confused, don’t worry. The rest of this is pretty straightforward.
Here is the landing page for that ad. So the deal is, to get your gift card, you have to give them info, fill out a survey, get spammed, blah blah blah…
But only the bottom of the barrel advertisers would use a child’s death to promote their special offers right? Well… sadly not really. Among the advertisers being promoted with this exciting contest is - Wal*Mart, Netflix, OldNavy, ADT security, Quicken Loans, Carnival Cruises, Block Buster, Discover Card and a bunch of companies that you would think were scummy enough to promote themselves this way.
I know, I am being an idiot. This is just business… and if you can’t capitalize on the death of a child, how in the hell do we expect anyone to make a buck?
* According to siteadvisor.com, popculturesurvey.com generated 291 spammy emails a week.
Feel free to take this article, post it on yout site, put your name on it, do whatever you want. I just want to get the word out.
