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Receive daily CN Alert emails with breaking headlines in the conferencing industry. Click here for this free service.DimDim Wants You (Guys) to Get Wood and Webinars
Sex, Marketing, and Conferencing. First we had Cisco's "How to Get a Girl" video demonstrating its telepresence system and then we had the lollipop-sucking women in Glowpoint's tradebooth some time ago, and now we have DimDim pimping webinar services by using sex objects that belong to the French with a video entitled "Sexy How To Make Money Online with Webinars.
The new DimDim "French Maid TV" promotional videos that show busty women in their underwear straddling on big balls punctuated with how-to instruction of DimDim's new webinar service will undoubtedly be rationalized along the lines that other advertisers like GoDaddy do risque Super Bowl commercials and all is OK and "safe for work" to watch. One scene in the DimDim promo even pays homage to "The Man Show' with its "" segment wherein the French Maids are bouncing on exercise balls while their barely covered, ample breasts bounce in slow motion.
We're not sure webinars - which are frequently purchased, marketed, attended, and hosted by women - are the right product to be promoted by busty B-grade models in their underwear acting like flirty french maids and having pillow fights. We're all supposed to be in on the joke of the sexual stereotype that's being exploited, but what's also at work here is a justification for men at the office to watch busty women having pillow fights and maybe get some wood. Quite frankly, in an age when porn is mainstream and a click away, we find the video a bit trite and at over 5 minutes, a bit tedious. It does have some marketing merit if your objective is to get men to watch something insanely boring - webinar instructions. But if you're going to get sexy in this day and age and push the envelope, why not sponsor a hardcore porn video? To align with the collaborative DimDim brand, it ought to be a group sex scene. Between sex position changes, the porn stars could explain the features of DimDim. French maids are so, like, yesterday.
Is DimDim's promotion exploitive of women? Does it sexually objectify them? ...To each her own opinion. At a minimum, we find it corny. And it's condescending to anyone who actually wants to learn about making money in online events. Others find this type of boob marketing, "effin' brilliant."
We'd suggest that much more entertaining in the age of "reality" programming would be for DimDim CEO DD Ganguly (double D, too rich) and CMO Steve Chazin and the rest of the all-male management team at DimDim to join the french maids in the action. That's right, the DimDim management team should disrobe and join in the pillow fight in their underwear and straddle exercise balls with the women and educate us on the features of the DimDim webinar service. We can all be in on the joke of exploited stereotypes (french maids, reality stars) and DimDim management can certainly be said to be an equal opportunity marketer. C'mon guys, join the ladies, take your clothes off, get bouncing on your balls, and educate us about DimDim!!! ...Hmmm, on second thought, this would be Not Safe For Anyone to view.
September 3, 2009
