The Rogue Marketer

I remember someone instant messaging me and saying that I should watch the Katie Couric show as one of the more well-known names in the performance marketing industry would receive unanticipated exposure. For most of us an unflattering mention on national television might send us into some form of mild cardiac arrest or have us dropping off the radar for a bit, but not this person. As an unexpected rationalist, he has accepted, even if begrudgingly, that his past actions make him an easy target for companies in need of a villain when doing a family interest or investigative piece on potential consumer hot buttons surrounding Internet advertising. Within the industry, this person’s reputation still divides, but his approval rating from those who have done business with him ranks on the high side. The same does not hold true for another person with whom those who only follow the Internet advertising landscape on a cursory level might confuse. Both have had their fair share of publicity and lawsuits, and in fact, both have had very public suits filed against them by MySpace. One of their cases just reached the judgment phase and it propelled the latter of these two marketers into the spotlight again. The other has without a doubt met with MySpace, and therein tells one huge difference between these two "spammers." You know where to find him, and you could find him easily if you needed. In fact, he’d probably almost offer up his mobile phone on television if people needed it, even knowing that they might try to sign him up for mobile offers.

The same transparency does not hold true for Sanford Wallace, the second of our true profiles above and the one who owes MySpace the equivalent of forty-percent of their purchase price to News Corp. MySpace filed the suit in late March of last year, "for violations of state and federal laws including the CAN-SPAM Act and California’s anti-spam and anti-phishing statutes." According to the site, he "created profiles, groups, and forums on MySpace to direct users through deceptive means" to websites either owned or operated by him, sending "thousands of users with unwanted advertisements that promoted his websites." Yesterday, MySpace claimed victory in this case, although neither of the two defendants, Wallace or his partner Walter Rines, showed up for the hearing. MySpace received what they requested, U.S. District Judge Audrey B. Collins awarded the "$157.4 million jointly against Rines and Wallace and an additional $63.4 million against Rines under CAN-SPAM _ plus $1.5 million more against the pair under California’s anti-phishing law and $4.7 million in attorneys fees. MySpace said it was entitled to another $3 million from Rines and Wallace under a different section of CAN-SPAM." Despite the encouraging, "check’s in the mail statement" from SanfordWallace.com and forgetting the whole other side story that arises from whether he runs the blog by his own name, as both MySpace and countless others have pointed out, they will have difficulty collecting on the awarded judgment. "The giant judgments are all defaults, which means they don’t necessarily even know how to find the spammer," says John Levine of the anti-spam advocacy group Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email.

Others have called the decision a landmark and those at MySpace want it to act as a deterrent, but they apparently spent $4.7 million dollars prosecuting on a case where internally, they know they won’t receive a penny. You can only hope it buys them that much ad revenue through users who now feel safer and will use it more actively. In many ways, I feel sorry for MySpace, because they probably want to go through these motions as much as Sanford Wallace does, but for the protection of their brand, they must play the game, all against a guy with a rap sheet for just about every other major spamming like offense. The story of Sanford and MySpace comes down to a very different story and one we see playing out in the performance marketing space all the time. Every network has their version of the Sanford, whether they knowingly support that person’s business or not. It’s a tale of two marketers, each born from the same ilk – one goes above ground, the other below, both clever, entrepreneurial, super quick executors, risk-prone, and slightly aggressive. Call it rogue versus corporate or as many do, adult versus mainstream. While they are very similar, there are some fundamental differences, and I remember my first encounter with some marketers I thought I understood, but I didn’t because they came from the adult world and I learned what I knew in a world that had certain rules and expectations.

We both know so little about the other. The rogue marketer gets whitelisted at companies by finding a guy inside and paying them off. The rogue marketer understands the letter of the law better than most, and know when they operate right up against or cross over it. They act for self and for opportunity. Then again, we all act for self and for opportunity, but some think about the wake they leave or the value they provide, but not these marketers. The true rogue marketers are the drug cartels of the Internet – elusive, alluring, powerful. What they don’t do is solve problems. The rogue marketer doesn’t build optimization engines or ad exchanges. They don’t build the bigger companies like Google who has made 1000+ millionaires or have the same level of concern for the user and quality of the user they deliver. You will be tempted to work with them. They truly are alluring and powerful, not to mention that they can generate such immense volume. They look for the quick buck, and they have no issues taking brokered deals of brokered deals. Sometimes, they cross over the mainstream or almost mainstream (Adult Friend Finder), and it’s not to say that you shouldn’t work with those on the fringe, but doing so puts your brand (whether your own or your employer’s) on the line, and the rogue will act with their interest at heart. Sanford is an extreme, but not that surprising. The question is, how illicit are you comfortable being? Then again, with Google and Yahoo operating like police states, it’s hard to say who these days is truly rogue.