Power Melissa

[JeffMcKC]

Tenneco Sponsors Stealth Forum Marketers
Earlier this year, a Hotrodders.com investigation uncovered a widespread stealth marketing campaign spanning more than 70 different automotive forums, detailed in this discussion on the Hotrodders.com forums.

A user posting as "powermelissa" was found to have copy-pasted identical posts across numerous hot rod and sport compact forums. First, "powermelissa" introduced herself as a "big-time car girl". Then, she began to subtly promote various automotive companies.

Investigation proved that "powermelissa" was in fact a stealth marketer working for a stealth marketing and video production company called PowerTV. PowerTV was being paid to spam forums in an effort to promote certain automotive companies, a practice that had been going on for years. On many forums, the Terms of Service prohibit such postings, which clearly appears to make the stealth marketing campaigns not only unethical, but also illegal.

PowerTV's clients include some of the largest companies in the automotive industry: General Motors, Holley, and Comp Cams. One of PowerTV's more prominent clients is Tenneco, a $4.7 billion company that owns many aftermarket car parts brands, including Rancho, Dynomax, Walker, and Monroe.

Don't you just love it. The best response, of course, is to vote with your dollars and not buy from them... also - make sure you use the forums for what they can do - provide excellent feedback about what works and what is truly just a waste of money.

[Trace Meyer]

Don't you just love a spammer snitching on a spammer?

[Jimmy Biggs]

Originally Posted by JeffMcKC

Tenneco Sponsors Stealth Forum Marketers
Earlier this year, a Hotrodders.com investigation uncovered a widespread stealth marketing campaign spanning more than 70 different automotive forums, detailed in this discussion on the Hotrodders.com forums.

A user posting as "powermelissa" was found to have copy-pasted identical posts across numerous hot rod and sport compact forums. First, "powermelissa" introduced herself as a "big-time car girl". Then, she began to subtly promote various automotive companies.

Investigation proved that "powermelissa" was in fact a stealth marketer working for a stealth marketing and video production company called PowerTV. PowerTV was being paid to spam forums in an effort to promote certain automotive companies, a practice that had been going on for years. On many forums, the Terms of Service prohibit such postings, which clearly appears to make the stealth marketing campaigns not only unethical, but also illegal.

PowerTV's clients include some of the largest companies in the automotive industry: General Motors, Holley, and Comp Cams. One of PowerTV's more prominent clients is Tenneco, a $4.7 billion company that owns many aftermarket car parts brands, including Rancho, Dynomax, Walker, and Monroe.

Don't you just love it. The best response, of course, is to vote with your dollars and not buy from them... also - make sure you use the forums for what they can do - provide excellent feedback about what works and what is truly just a waste of money.

What are ya outta trees to hug???? We here at YB don't care who posts videos (Racing/Product/Services don't matter)...... if they are a Benefit for our Members GREAT......... If they are scumbag companies they'll be listed here....... Here's a clue Bucko....... billion $$$ companies still have humans working for them.......... Melissa is free to post here on YB with whatever she has.......... their isn't any more room in drag racing for Flaming LIBERALS so get the class envy chip off your shoulder

[JeffMcKC]

As a Member of Rush 24/7 and a Working class guy in the free market I understand how things work very well, I think YB is a great example of this, and there should not be a problem pointing out the Hypocrisy of a Company back dooring to give there selves feed back, and misrepresenting them selves, in other words waking up and saying how do we fool them today, sounds like a Democrats to me. People on here knowing who is trying to fool them is what this link was started for right?

[Jimmy Biggs]

I call it marketing.......... Yellow Bullet is what it is because of our policy's ....... This was decided on day one........ Too many boards want to be Nazi's (when they themselves have their hand out for a few bucks) You will see there is NO ADVERTISERS on here......... Why???? Monty made that call on day one also......... We don't have to bow to anyone on here........ YB grew to this size because ALL ARE WELCOME........... Shit shouldn't I be the first one in line bitching about Power TV videos????? They are competition to me aren't they??? ......... I say Bring on all the videos.........
YB Has proved that the standard way of running a message board SUCKS

[ProModPrincess]

I don't really think its SPAM... PowerTV provides viewers a benefit... race videos or interviews or whathaveyou. The advertisments pay for the video production and cost of operation. So what if they are good at promoting it? SPAM, on the other hand. is just an all-out ad... hello VIAGRA, or all those Nigerian schemes.

[7DMACH1]

Damn, I wonder what he calls me????

[Vanilla]

Originally Posted by 7DMACH1

Damn, I wonder what he calls me????

You dont wanna know.....



Vanilla

[7DMACH1]

ROTFLMAO!!!!

[mrtbolt64]

Who gives a phuck. If I dont want to click on it I wont, I understand full well what PowerMalissa is doing......Who cares

[7DMACH1]

This guy has spent an awful lot of time on this.

http://www.hotrodders.com/forum/guer...tml#post853104

[qwiknotch]

Everyone who knows Melissa or PowerTV, knows that she is part owner of PowerTV and also owns the website socal-racing.com

I see nothing wrong with what she has done and the more exposure car enthusiast websites can get, more power to us. It will just benefit us in the end.....

I like how one guy made the claim thaty she probably drives a Prius... Little does he know about her at all...

[Jason Reiss]

http://www.corral.net/forums/showthread.php?t=980191

Read post 35.

As always...there are two sides to every story.

[bradlee]

What the hell is the big deal here? I may be missing something, and if I am please correct me, But all I have ever seen are threads with LINKS telling us what videos are there "IF" you want to click on them.

The only people that I could understand getting pissed would be people like Mr. Jimmy Biggs, as this could be looked at as competition. But as he let me know awhile back he is willing to do and try damn near anything to help promote our great sport of dragracing and help keep it growing.

So if Mr. Biggs sees this as just another way of promoting our sport, why would someone not in the video business have a problem?

After all, this is a free site (10,000+ strong) and nobody is forcing any of us to come on here and look at anything!

Brad Lee
Drag racing fan

[Vanilla]

Can I chime in here??

I have seem Melissa post on a couple of boards I frequent, and it has never been a "post and go" type of thing. If somebody asks a question in one of her threads, she usually responds in a pretty timely manner. A true spammer wouldnt even come back, except to post more garbage. right??

So what if they have adds in the videos or they have videos of sponsors.. This stuff aint free, right Jimmy?


Vanilla