Ashleeturfing

Viral marketing is named after a virus for a reason.

Friday, April 06, 2007

CBS Spamming Message Forums

It looks like someone (on behalf of CBS?) has just started an Ashleeturfing spam campaign (using fake "sock puppet" user accounts) on several different message forums. The question is, what are they promoting exactly?

"Would you go out on a date with celebrity?"

Update: The spammer is now replying to their original threads to deliver the "real" message spam: A contest being run by CBS to promote the soap opera “As The World Turns”.

Monday, July 31, 2006

What is Ashleeturfing?

"Ashleeturfing" is a type of astorturfing campaign where marketing companies are paid to create fake postings on message forums, weblogs, and other online communities to promote a product, web site, media venture, or other commercial enterprise. The term ashleeturfing was named after an incident where a viral marketing company spammed several message forums posing as "fans" to promote pop singer Ashlee Simpson and her MTV series.