branding

branding, phone call

Imagine you are a well know, global brand. Your brand includes several high value products with brands that are recognized by anyone. 

Would you protect your brands? Like trademarking them? Patenting the technology? Building public awareness? Promote and market them?

Sure you would.

What if someone then contacts you and tell you that your computers are spewing out spam. Covering your own products, your competitors products as well as any other kind of products we all receive in our inboxes. 

What would you do now?

I bet you would not dig your big, fat head into the sandbox and pretend that the spamming is not happening. I am sure you would instantly recognize the problem, and start investigating, and then clean out your closet. 

There is no way you would do as Pfizer does.

You see, many of the Viagra, Cialis and penis enlargment pill spams you get in your mailbox originate from within the Pfizer network, and Pfizer does nothing about it.  

Pfizer, it is time to realize you need to clean out your closet. if you are not sure how to do it yourself, I know of many who would love to offer a helping hand!

After publishing my post on salmon fishing yesterday, I came about a Google Alert in my beloved RSS-reader and website monitor Snarfer.

The teaser text showing up in my reader is a cut'n'paste job from my website. Then there is a link to this url: http://blackforestdecor.blogspot.com/2007/09/google-alert-fishing_2713.html

(I will not link it - cut'n'paste if you want to see for yourself).

I thought they may have commented on my post, so I wanted to read it. I cannot help myself, I just love reading stuff people say about me. I was surprised when I was forwarded a couple of times, starting to expect a download, hoax or anything at least remotely exiting. Imagine my disappointment when my browser took me to this website: http://blackforestdecor.com (link not active of same reasons as above).

To me, this looks like a genuine shop. It looks like a place where I might even buy myself some stuff to my fishing cabin. But I must admit I do not approve on their marketing methods.

On the bottom of their web pages, they link to Hacker Safe. Which brings me to the reason for this post - is this marketing - or hijacking of content - hacker safe? Teaching your customers to expect one type of content, and then automatically forwarded to a shop? 

Another question I pose is whether or not this web site is legitimate? I imagine phishers and other criminal elements would love to use such a front to get you to slip them your CC number. PCI regulations makes that increasingly harder, but it is not impossible. 

It may also very well be a competitor, or angry customer (or others with bad intent) who has done the forwarding. Why? To discredit the company. If customers starts to associate the brand with hacker sites, downloading of virus or any other related activities, they will very soon turn their back to the store.

It takes a long time to build trust, and only one simple click to remove it!

One part of me is flattered by the fact someone have copied my content to promote their shop. But mostly I am annoyed that my content is used just like that, and without actually showing it, only automatically forwarding the reader to the shop.

What should I do in your opinion?

This post is edited - I have made a huge mistake - thinking Michael Farnum to be Marcus Ranum. Wow - that is a mistake not even sleepless nights may explain! I have edited the post to reflect the correct name.

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Michael Farnum, a superhero of security, is having a hard time with people not recognizing him as the authority he is. Of course, after around 20 years in a business where whatever he says and does is hailed upon, it must be easy to get cocky. Guess I need to do a Security Profile on him to see if he really is.

So - Michael had a problem with Douglas Schweitzer's blog post describing bots. And as the helper Michael is, he jumps in and immediately explains that Douglas is mistaking, and then describes a bot as it should be. Of course this starts off a fire.

All this was brought to my attention by Michael posting his frustration on his own blog today. It turns out in the post someone posted a comment on the Douglas story, telling Michael to turn away, since he has not

"written any computer security books "

This should get a gun like Michael to laugh out loud. It sure made me do that. Especially since the comment is made on his own blog!

And I did not laugh only because there are people out there who do not know Michael . But to see Michael actually fire up as he does because someone out there actually do not know about him!

So Michael - the lessen for you and the rest of us is simple. It is not about writing a book - it is about branding. You may write a lot of books, and you might not. If no one knows your name, you are nobody. And to David, you are obviously a nobody. And to impress David, it takes a book!

Imo, there is no need to get angry and fire yourself up just because there are people not recognizing you as the security expert you obviously are to many others. It should wake you up - it might be time to revise your marketing and branding strategy to the changes in the market space?

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The Gen-Y has taken over the Internet. They are moving on to Web 2.0. Interaction, sharing and taking part is more important than quality control and security considerations.

The latest addition is Reddit - the link-sharing website where you can promote your own content, and have potentially millions of readers value it. If you are lucky, your story makes it to the top.