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It is obvious from the image above that Viagra's warning is really a means of reinforcing its potential potency and exciting the imaginations (with visual imagery and associations) of propective purchasers. This warning is perhaps the product's greatest, most notable disguised (albeit thinly) endorsement.

When teens wanting a "high" read the labels on over-the-counter products and receive warnings that allude to greater strength, potency and side effects (some of them, which are arguably desirable), especially in the noteworthy cases of cough medicines, antihistamines, decongestants and various paint removers, varnishes, glues and cleaning agents, they are naturally viewed as "more powerful."

Remember (especially you Boomers), the classic Lays potato chip challenge... "Betcha can't eat just one." ? The challenge was a warning about their addictive qualities -- and that made us think that they were all the better than any competing brand.

In other cases, financial institutions and other companies which want to sell you identity protection insurance and other profit-center add-ons send out warning notices about your identity possibly having been compromised, and their offer to subscribe you for several months' worth (absolutely free until renewal time) of some sort of ID theft insurance issued by some company which they've actually entered into a cooperative marketing deal with.

There are numerous emails and snail mails which exemplify this type of scare tactic being used to induce or exploit the customer to subscribe to a service which he or she may not need at all. The hope is that the customer will want to keep the "security and safety provided by the service and start to pay monthly or quarterly after the free period has expired. This, unlike the earlier examples, is patently abusive, and creates as much resentment as it does in terms of marginal revenue for the companies that put the scare into the consumer.

Comcast (XFinity) is one of the country's 15 worst-regarded companies. But they recently sent me a caring email indicating that my computer might be infected by malware or a "bot," and that they had (at no expense to me, the customer) a service which I could download (which, of itself was persistent sales-oriented malware, which came with a whole host of other automatic and unnecessary downloads, too -- including a Comcast Toolbar! -- which were simply a part of the package:

Constant Guard™ Alert

Dear XFINITY Customer,

XFINITY identified one or more of your computers may be infected with a bot. You might have already seen an Alert from XFINITY informing you about bot activity.

We strongly recommend you take action to remove malicious software from your computers.
We appreciate your prompt attention to this important security notice.

Sincerely,

Constant Guard from XFINITY
[BUTTON TO DOWNLOAD CRAPWARE, EXCLUDED]

A bot is a malicious form of software that is used to send spam, host a phishing site, or steal your identity by monitoring your keystrokes without your knowledge.

Bot infects your computer

Bot gathers your personal info

Bot passes your info to 3rd party

Constant Guard is a comprehensive online security protection service provided by XFINITY Internet.

We help ensure your online safety with products and services to protect you, your computer and your family.

Constant Guard identifies infected computers by:

Getting data from reputable Internet research groups that specialize in bot identification.
Looking for malicious behavior exhibited by bots (such as spam, distributed denial of service attacks, and repeated connection requests to known 'command and control' channels).
Collecting this data to confirm whether one or more of your computers has been infected.

This is a service related email. Comcast will occasionally send you service-related emails to inform you of service upgrades or new benefits to you Comcast High-Speed Internet service.
--------------- ---------------

Needless to say, I pressed the download button and was regaled with all kinds of pop-ups and other boxes which were engineered to force me into making foolish pressured decisions about downloading all manner of junk, getting more XFinity services, and making Comcast into my home page.

By all means, use warnings as a selling tool if they are not abusive and misleading. The keys to the best use of these selling messages embedded into warnings are, that they:

1) Must be true;

2) Must be carefully and intelligently worded;

3) Cannot be deliberately misleading;

4) Cannot waste a customer or prospective customer's precious time; and

5) Can never force the customer or prospective customer into a rapid-fire decision making mode which creates negative stress -- this is quite different than a legitimate call to action.

Warnings are indeed great selling opportunities -- but if you abuse them, you will lose more customers than you will gain, and your brand will begin to suffer as customers compare notes via the ever-present social media.

I think it's fair to warn all of my readers that reading The Mad Marketing Tactics Blog may become addicting.

Thank you for reading me, and for re-tweeting me.

Douglas E. Castle

p.s. Please also read, bookmark and favoritize (?) these other blogs:

The CFI CrowdFunding Incubator Blog
The Crowd Funding RSS Feeds Blog, and
The CrowdFunding Incubator Blog