Had to read your post two or three times in order to get the gist of it. Kinda hard when you have to filter out so many asterisks. Try not using so much profanity next time.

You didn't mention this in your post but since you're a producer/director its much easier to understand your position. However, the world is full of people that just "let it go", and that for the most part is one major thing that's wrong with today's society. There are way to few people who are willing to stand up for themselves when the situation calls for it and way too many that look at things like this and say why fight city hall. Those are the weak ones, the liberals who don't mind getting screwed. I'm afraid you have come upon a bunch of conservatives when it comes to gorilla marketing. Thats just the way it is around here so you'll have to get used to it.

By the way, welcome to HR.com

__________________
Centerline
HotRodsAndHemis.com

I was looking thru some saved e-mails I had from PTV, and came across this old one. It seems to me on the surface, that they don't make any attempt to hide the fact that they are marketers. They identify themselves by name, and based upon the contact info, plus the fact that I personally contacted both Melissa and James when we were beta-testing for before the scheduled live launch, that they are who they said they were. Marketers looking to reach a targeted audience.



Full text: http://nmratv.com/index.php?id=10


See that bold outline above? They said in this PUBLIC PRESS RELEASE that they are offering MARKETING SOLUTIONS. It was signed by Melissa.

SO... would it be a strecth in logic to take this statement which appears at the top of this forum:

"Big-time car girl" exposed as corporate stealth marketer" and compare it to the above PUBLIC PRESS RELEASE and say that in fact she has been slandered by the "stealth marketer" which implies she tried to hide the fact that PowerTv is basically a marketing venture?

Hmmmm?

This is why my own, person initial reaction to this whole "scandal uncovered" was one of amusement and surprise that anyone really thought it was anything else from the get go. They TOLD the public and they told us what this was intended for.

The MISTAKE was to NOT RESPECT THE WISHES OF PRIVATE WEBSITES.

Ok, they screwed up. That was wrong. The assertion that they were trying to fool anyone or something was "uncovered" is ludicrous.

Then there's this line from above:

"Hotrodders.com uncovers identical stealth marketing promotions on more than 70 different automotive forums"

Ok, now read this update that James sent out to all of us who expressed an interest in the PTV network:

Right now we are running into online security issues with the
embedded "Player". We may launch in January w/o the Embedded Player
and add that as a feature in early Feb. Most of these delays we've
run into have been problems with security openings with the embedded
and syndicated videos. In other words, with the concept of
syndication comes abuse possibilities (spam, porn, etc.) Because of
the caliber of the sites we are working with (Corral, Stangnet,
LS1tech, Evolution M, etc.) and companies we are working with (Comp
Cams, Vortech, Holley, GM, etc.). there cannot be any release without
a robust security and hacker-prevention mechanism.

Although you have already received these, attached is our partner
channel setup procedures. Making sure you've gotten your URL,
graphics packages, headers, and menus built will allow you to launch
once we release public Beta.

We have about 80 partners right now and they all want to get this
live, so I can assure you it is our #1 priority.

I appreciate your support and am excited to work with you with this
online video technology. Please feel free to contact us with any
questions you may have.

Best regards..

James

Oooooo kay, so there they MENTION some of the companies listed in the "scandal uncovered" headlines, PLUS they said EIGHTY partners. Not the mere seventy that Jon "discovered" so apparently Jon, you missed 10 others out there. Shoddy reporting I tell ya!!

Now, before anyone accuses me of posting this at the behest of James or Melissa, you are WRONG. I decided to go back and look at these saved messages to refresh my own memory as to how they represented themselves to us. It seems they pretty much outlined everything that they are accused of not doing. The only thing I can't find, is the part where they say "Oh, and by the way, we're going to ignore repeated requests by webmasters and admins to stop posting this stuff where it is not welcome"

THAT is what they did very wrong. (ignoring repeated requests not to post these things where they are not welcome) The rest of the "scandal" is hooey.

I think the previous post by Oak O'Connor is pretty well said by the way.

Have I made all sides angry yet? if so, then mission accomplished.

angry ?
nope.
but I came across this , which did make me laugh. thought I'd share.

Attached Thumbnails

 

My post has been edited. To see what it said in it's original context, please see the same discussion on The Corral.

Oak O'Connor -- Regarding Gas Monkey Garage: has anyone else noticed that their website has been taken down, and that there's been a "New website coming soon" message for months? I've seen plenty of website redesigns in my time, but I've never seen someone take their existing website offline for months, only to leave a "new website coming soon" page. My best guess is that they just took down the site indefinitely. From what I hear, their presence at shows has decreased drastically. We found one TV show airing a rerun that included the GMG guys, but that's about it. Discovery pulled them off the air, and, to my knowledge, they haven't returned.

In addition, we taught Discovery Communications a thing or two about trying to threaten our free speech. And, we showed a lot of people what really goes on behind the scenes in the automotive marketing world. We got to do it all by spreading lots of smiles and laughs through parody.

All in all, I perceive our exposure of the "Spank My Monkey" campaign as extremely successful, and I think we'll be similarly successful with this PowerTV issue.

-------

Corral_Dude -- your post was edited for copy-pasting, and a link to the full text was added, so people can see the full press release to which you were referring. See our copy-pasting guidelines for details.

If you dug through all of their promo material, you would likely find some stuff in which they were being forthright. In fact, in their media package intended for advertisers, they're very straightforward -- they list the exact prices for shooting and promoting various videos.

When they posted here (and on many other forums), they weren't straightforward. They didn't mention that the "video coverage" is actually paid advertisements for the companies.

The press releases and the media kits say one thing. When they post on forums, it's a whole different story. That's one of they key points I've been making.

James has now resorted to spreading outright lies about me, which I've mentioned in a previous post in this thread. That's a big red flag, especially for someone who is now claiming that his ownership of a dyno qualifies him as an unbiased source of information on testing performance parts.

"Partners" and websites on which they're posting are two different things. There are actually hundreds of hotrod, import, "drifting", ATV, and dirtbike websites on which they've posted, not just 80. The first 70 or so in my initial thread were just the most obvious. I'm compiling a full list.

I did read the link, I understand.

I see we have a fundamental difference in viewpoint based on where we started out from; I am trying to see it as if I didn't know what I do-
I knew what it was about going in because of the fact we were willing to be part of it. This makes it difficult for me to reasonably conclude that they were "hiding" something.

However as I have said all along, they made a huge error by not respecting the wishes of the individual webmasters and websites that didn't wish to have the content posted on their forums.

Cool. Try to step in my shoes for a second, and see what the situation looks like to someone who doesn't run a PowerTV "channel" in their forum.

BTW, you're fine to post a direct link to the Corral.net thread in here. Open dialogue will likely help this situation, rather than hurt it. That's part of the reason why we haven't "banned" anyone in connection with this. Really, I would like James to join in this discussion, as I feel that he has some 'splainin to do.

Re-examine James's strategy in the Corral.net thread. Rather than dealing with the facts of the situation, he's trying to discredit me personally (saying that I "tried to sue SEMA", that I "hate companies", and comparing me to an anti-abortion activist who murders doctors), and trying to establish himself as credible (he owns a dyno, so therefore he's unbiased, etc.).

As if people are going to walk away from this situation thinking: "Oh, that Jon guy is clearly just insane. James and his dyno, on the other hand, are completely unbiased, scientific, and fair."

Oh, you mean like the old cigarette ads that claimed their product was beneficial to your health, or before that with snake oil?

There has never been any truth in advertising.

And about SEMA being our friends, lets say the whackos mandate us having a third brake light in our vehicles regardless of the year of manufacture (seems harmless enough). Do you honestly believe that SEMA would have more interest in fighting the legislature, or start a marketing campaign for "period correct" brake lights that wouldn't look out of place in say a 34 Ford street rod? Maybe this is over simplified, but I think I get my point across.

This isn't aimed at you Centerline, just using your quote.

Please excuse the total lack of information I have on this whole subject. I have not read every post, just lurked once in a while during it's growth. But I just clicked on the link to the Corral forum that Jon supplied. I read the post where SEMA is said to help hotrodders thru bills they have supported.

The guys name is James and I an not beating the guy up, I have not read enough of his stuff to have any serious opinion and I am not basing my opinion of him on this one thing.

He had a little "scoring" system attached to every bill scoring it either industry or hobbiest supporting. His scoring system is of course simply his opinion and his point of the whole thing is to "prove" that Jon is biased when he says that all SEMA supports are bills helping the industry make money and not the hobbiests themselves. Some of the ones he lists he scores as both hobbiests as well as manufacturer supporting.

Hes scoring is wacked out in my opinion and seriously biased it's self. If a bill supports something like "allowing custom car guys to register their vehicles." or "SEMA pushes legislation allowing Hot Rodders to keep inoperable vehicle's for collecting, modification, and restoration" or another about scraping vehicles. All of these James "scores" as "Supporting hobbiests" and not the industry. HUH???

They certainly do support the industry for goodness sakes, if more cars are in the hands of the hobbiests the aftermarket industry sells more parts! This concept really isn't very hard to digest. EVERY SINGLE bill he has mentioned helps the industry, as well as the hobbiest. But there is not one single on there that would help the hobbiest and NOT the industry. His scoring is skewed leaning towards SEMAS side just as he claims Jons is skewed in the opposite direction.

When SEMA were to support a bill that did something like limit cost of aftermarket parts that the hobbiest uses, now I would believe he has something to stand on. But they do not, every single thing listed would help the industry sell more, PERIOD.

Brian

That's putting it lightly.

Powermelissa has made 6 posts in our forums to date and violated our terms of use agreement 4 out of those 6 posts. All, by the way were in the introduction forum and half were worded almost exactly the same, each one being a new introduction. Hopefully she knows better than to post again.

__________________
Centerline
HotRodsAndHemis.com

SEMA has some positive effects for the hotrodding community. BstMech in particular brought up an important nuance in regard to lobbying and marketing.

However, SEMA's first loyalty is to the companies and the marketers, not the hotrodders. That's not "evil" per se. It's actually quite normal, just as a company owner's first loyalty will be to his company. People just need to realize that in black and white.

All SEMA really had to do over the whole Spank My Monkey thing was say: "Hey, sorry about that, guys. Won't happen again." Of course, they didn't, and, one year later, we find them supporting yet another stealth marketing campaign on forums.

MARTINSR picked up on James's "scoring" system. I can break it down even further. Regarding SEMA, my exact quote from this post is:



James twists this into:



I never said that each piece of SEMA legislation only benefits corporate interests, and hurts the individual hotrodder. I said that if you examine each piece of SEMA legislation, you would find that they supported legislation that benefited companies, but hurt hotrodders. To prove my point, you would only need to find one piece of legislation that SEMA supported, that was pro-company, but anti-hotrodder.

Specifically, note how he twists what I said by distorting my use of the words "each" and "hurt", and inserting the word "only". James refers to this as exposing "Jon's biased research".

Most of what he's putting forth is just spin, and anyone with basic media savvy should be able to see that. It's disappointing that he's resorting to such tactics, but it's also a good sign for us, because it demonstrates that he's scrambling, because he can't honestly defend what's been happening.

Thanks for the acknowledgment Greg - Corral Dude. I am surprised that the moderator sent me one response and posted an abridged one. Both had a hard time understanding what I was trying to say. I was offered a Psychoanalysis by the moderator that I was feeling threatened by the exposure of the marketing ploy because I am a producer/director. Wow - Hot Rod tech tips and Psychoanalysis too. Then the fact that the hot rod forum is a conservative machine "get used to it" exactly my point. This is an anger forum. Us verses them. Liberals vs Conservatives. Where are the hot rods? Personally I am glad SEMA has kept my 73 year old car from being scrapped and for helping manufacturers stay in business so I can buy speed parts. I don't buy anything I don't want and no ad or marketing campaign will make me. Here is the entire message. Note the high horse. Note the attacks: one was omitted in the post "if your vocabulary allows" and
"You didn't mention this in your post" No but it's in my profile unlike the moderators.



Buddy you have no idea in the world what I have stood up for and against and to what lengths.

Thanks for the welcome.

Guys, can we all please stop making 'assumptions' about eachother?
You PR people...Admins...Forum members....It's all getting too much. By all means state your opinions, but don't assume to know what makes another guy tick.
This makes for interesting but frustrating reading.

As I get older, I find I care less & less about stuff, yet at the same time, I tolerate less & less.
Years ago, I would never have thought that possible, but outside influences, stuff that's out of my control, has had a major impact in defining who I've become.

Has anyone had any luck developing a Time Machine yet?

Well, see, there's this Delorean with a flux capacitor and....