Why would anyone pay $3000 to attend a conference to receive an award, which in reality amounts to nothing?
Your users don't care about some stupid online award they've never heard of. If the investors you're talking to care about it then it's time to find new investors.
I remember being solicited for this in 2008, maybe 2009.
While it was pretty obvious that I could 'win' the award by paying for a conference ticket, I considered it - just so I could send out the press release, put the logo on my web site, and drop the name in client presentations. I figured I might get more value out of it than the few thousand dollars it cost, since we were selling into ad agencies and they seemed to value awards very highly. I also figured they wouldn't know this particular award was meaningless.
In the end I got a little too irritated by the sales guy's hard sell and passed, but I'm not certain it was a rational economic decision. Lots of ad technology companies trumpet their phony awards to the skies.
And those will be more susceptible to other scams. The 419ers operate off a similar logic -- it's a pre-screening for gullibility, cuts down on their sorting and selection task.
Comments
Why would anyone pay $3000 to attend a conference to receive an award, which in reality amounts to nothing?
Your users don't care about some stupid online award they've never heard of. If the investors you're talking to care about it then it's time to find new investors.
I remember being solicited for this in 2008, maybe 2009.
While it was pretty obvious that I could 'win' the award by paying for a conference ticket, I considered it - just so I could send out the press release, put the logo on my web site, and drop the name in client presentations. I figured I might get more value out of it than the few thousand dollars it cost, since we were selling into ad agencies and they seemed to value awards very highly. I also figured they wouldn't know this particular award was meaningless.
In the end I got a little too irritated by the sales guy's hard sell and passed, but I'm not certain it was a rational economic decision. Lots of ad technology companies trumpet their phony awards to the skies.
False credentialing.
You may or may not know it means nothing.
Some of your customers won't.
And those will be more susceptible to other scams. The 419ers operate off a similar logic -- it's a pre-screening for gullibility, cuts down on their sorting and selection task.
Ego most likely.
It's not even ego, it's external validation. You're not sure you're doing it right and then someone says you are. Powerful.