It’s hard to imagine that motivational speaker Anthony Robbins would be pleased to learn his carefully cultivated brand name is being leveraged to sell highly questionable online-income opportunities such as cash-gifting programs.
Robbins, however, has company — and it’s the sort of company that adds an extra layer of dubiousness to the drip-drop dilution of the Robbins’ brand: The brands of AdGateWorld and AdViewGlobal also are being used to harvest traffic to “opportunities” that appear to have nothing to do with the autosurf companies.
AdGateWorld and AdViewGlobal are autosurf companies that surfaced in the wake of the alleged $100 million AdSurfDaily autosurf Ponzi scheme. The U.S. government takes a dim view of the autosurf business model, saying it’s a back-door way of selling securities without a license — while using money from new investors to pay redemptions requested by earlier investors: the classic Ponzi set-up.
At the same time, the government also cautions against participating in cash-gifting programs, many of which use an illegal pyramid model and trade on get-rich-quick dreams.
This is one of those bizarre things that happens only online. Autosurfs have been under public scrutiny in the aftermath of the well-publicized August seizure of ASD’s assets.
Promoters of cash-gifting and MLM-style programs now appear to be trading on ASD’s pain — and the names of new autosurfs that have surfaced since the ASD asset seizure — to harvest traffic and route dollars to their own questionable opportunities.
Last night and this morning we noticed that some promoters of cash-gifting and other questionable programs have been using keywords such as “Ad View Global” and “Ad Gate World” to drive traffic to their video presentations. The autosurf names appear in headlines on the video sites, but the videos themselves don’t talk about the autosurfs.
People who anticipate viewing an autosurf pitch instead are greeted with a cash-gifting pitch or a pitch for another MLM-style program.
Robbins’ name also is being used in an apparent bid to siphon traffic that originates with autosurf- or business-opportunity-related keywords, and, in at least one case, is being used in an actual video ad for a cash-gifting program. We also noticed Robbins’ likeness in video stills whose headlines suggested the videos were about autosurfs.
This morning we viewed a video with a headline of “Ad Gate World Create[s] the 4 Hour Work Week.” The video was about a cash-gifting program, not the Ad Gate World autosurf program. Robbins’ name was scrolled in the opening frames of the video.
A woman who appeared in the video declared she’d found her nirvana through cash-gifting:
“Cash-gifting is the way to go — hands down,” she told viewers. “This is what I want to do, like forever, now.”
Like him or not, Tony Robbins has worked hard to cultivate a unique brand identity. Last year he sued Stephen Pierce, an Internet Marketer, amid allegations that Pierce was leveraging the Robbins’ brand without authorization.
Read about the Robbins/Pierce lawsuit on TMZ.com.
“[Robbins] carefully limits and vigorously protects and defends the good will and value of Robbins’ name, reputation and image,” Robbins said in the lawsuit.
Some promoters of highly questionable programs are really pushing things by associating Robbins’ brand with their “opportunities.” This is one of the reasons large segments of the public view Internet Marketing as a cesspool.
It’s painful to watch.