Updated…
My friend Keiron sent me a few links (from Fark)to what is, to all appearances, a new viral campaign..for something. Not quite sure what yet, but it’s definitely looks like a campaign. First of all read ThatGirlEmily. She started a blog a few weeks ago and then sudden calamity. A women scorned, swearing a 2 week campaign of vengence on her cheating husband. She has some nice contacts – called in a favour on Saturday night and less than 48 hours later she has billboards up in 2 cities declaring vengeance.

Now Will Thompson has done some digging and gives a rundown as to how you can spot that this is a campaign. Starting off with the perfect spelling and grammar and purple prose. ( I wonder how many client reviews the agency had to go through). And the multiple postings of the same message on different discussion groups, calmly posted 15 minutes apart when she is supposed to be on her way to see a PI. There’s a few other postings that Emily appears to have made as well, including this one, or this talking merrily about her lovely husband at the same time as posting that he is cheating on her on her blog.

And with all the advice that the women on these boards have offered, she’s not gone back and told them about her campaign to get back at her husband? But she is posting comments on other peoples blogs.

It’s at this point I hope I’m completely wrong, that it is not a stealth marketing campaign, that all these pointers are just because she is an extremely gifted writer/editor and very quick at picking up on blogs/message boards and her posts to some of the boards just got delayed in the timing. (because if not, this could severely backfire given the time and concern that is being expressed on the boards where she has posted. I’ve subscribed ‘cos I’m interested in what she’s going to do in the 2 weeks of wrath she promises (interestingly the feed is listed as new yesterday in bloglines).

Update: I’ve got confirmation that this is a campaign for Court TV. (friend of a friend).

And here’s a follow up comment from Smart at Love:

Manipulating forums like this where people actually go for actual help just to sell your products to people already suffering… that’s the lowest of low.

I can’t wait for someone to find and out the scam marketers responsible for this, so we can publish all their REAL personal info on the internet. And billboards.

There are other similar messages on the message boards where Emily has been asking for help and advice.

There’s a billboard up in Chicago as well