Power melissa

[Jim Morris]

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.


I pulled this off of Yellowbullet.

[Sheep DoGG]

We have been had

[Z Ya]

Yea I always seen her on here and different boards advertising the videos. But at least the videos were still cool to watch.

[pkracing]

Originally Posted by Z Ya

Yea I always seen her on here and different boards advertising the videos. But at least the videos were still cool to watch.

yep! you betcha...so big deal on what she's doing, just keep showing the videos

[Z Ya]

Do a search on Google for powermelissa and you'll find out just how many forums she is doing this stuff on. That is one thing I definitely don't care for.....when a person registers on a site only to advertise and not to participate like a "real" member should.

[Z Ya]

I mean I knida agree with the video part, but when a person is going around registering on sites because they are getting paid....now that's the bs part of it.

[Sheep DoGG]

Originally Posted by Z Ya

I mean I knida agree with the video part, but when a person is going around registering on sites because they are getting paid....now that's the bs part of it.

Webmaster Nazi

[spdracr]

Originally Posted by Z Ya

Yea I always seen her on here and different boards advertising the videos. But at least the videos were still cool to watch.

[Jim Morris]

The vids were really good.

[Z Ya]

Originally Posted by Sheep DoGG

Webmaster Nazi

Well, when you look at it like.....
All these other people are paying to keep their sites up and running and then you have this other person using that site to advertise to their members to make a profit. I mean nothing wrong with making a profit, but use your own site to do it or pay the other sites you're spamming on to advertise. I mean it's actually like you're paying to make her money.

As you know, most other sites charge a person to advertise. But since most people on the car sites like to watch car videos, she was getting away with what she was doing. You yourself see the list of members (bots) here that were banned for posting links and threads advertising viagra, porn and whatever else. Well, that's pretty much the same thing she's been doing here and at all the other sites she's been on.


I don't know...that's just kinda the way I look at it.