Below is the mail I got 2 months ago over at fragrantica, where I participate more actively than here. And while I am sure there are some people who truly love Aventus, this should put things in perspective. Once again it is the freebie vs. favorable review thing, that is going on not just for perfumes but across many lines of consumer industries, also called viral
marketing. And I think it is safe to say, that things got a bit out of hand for Aventus marketing.
"Viral marketing works on the principle that people will inform others of something they find amusing, interesting, or otherwise worthwhile of their time and then those people generally tend to tell other people and so on. The purpose of viral marketing is to attract a large amount of awareness to your website/business/brand and this awareness will turn into traffic and positive business for your site. The team at Warlock Media can produce elaborate viral marketing campaigns" (taken as example from from
http://www.warlockmedia.com/viral-marketing.html). For more info, google "viral marketing agency"
And this is what I was sent on Fragrantica - hm, how could this relate to viral marketing?
Dear miner,
I read your reviews and are impressed by your level of expertise, it's not easy to hint on the neroli note in your review of abc. You've got an excellent nose! We are fragrance enthusiasts ourselves and work with a number of luxury brands. I learned that due to the vast variety of new fragrance releases and regionally limited distributions, fragrance lovers like you and me have to miss out on many opportunities simply due to lack of availability. We would like to change his.
Working with some of the finest luxury parfume houses worldwide, we get samples and testers for many new brand releases - sometimes even prior to them becoming available on the regular market. We would be happy to pass these on to you - absolutely free, no strings attached, you don't even pay for shipping. All we hope for is that you let the world know if you find a fragrance you like - just as you are already doing right now.
Interested? Just send me a PM and we'll work something out
Yours
Benjamin Ardenough
But of course noone at basenotes as the largest fragrance-related site has ever gotten anything like this
