Brand Protection Group Campaign is an association of leading local, regional, and international manufacturers and distributors that joined efforts in March 2003 to fight counterfeit products in Lebanon and the Levant region. [Website]
Even though I am supportive of such campaigns, but duplicating people’s facebook accounts and sending them friends requests is not how you get one’s attention. Darine Sabbagh seemingly liked it and Mustapha found it brilliant but I am against such approaches.
It is an invasion of privacy as some people might have mistakenly messaged the fraudulent account and many users could have reported the correct account and caused its closure by mistake as well. Playing with people’s personal profiles is not funny.
Well Najib, I have to add something here, that they took my name and my family name but they change a letter for example instead of NAJIB they put Nejib and your real family name but of course your real picture. Well in fact I loved the idea, it is a social media and Marketing job raising awareness,the message from this campaign is as you are afraid for your privacy you have to be afraid from eating or using fake products and you have to report that brand.
Of course they got our attention because they add almost all the loggers, or active people online in lebanon, and here you are posting about this campaign with darine and mustafa ! :O)
Joe,
I did see this message on my fb but I did not bother mention it because I didn’t know they had created another profile for me. I thought it was just some other campaign ( I did not get a friend request btw). I just commented on it after I found it what It was and after some bloggers seemed to have liked it.
Of course you will get people’s attention but for all the wrong reasons to be honest which is why I posted this when I saw some bloggers who liked it. Why don’t I create another profile for you 2morow and start sending messages to your friends and then mention that I was just testing if you are aware of my fraudulent act?
It is very easy to get people’s attention through controversial and unethical acts but It is not always the good way to go.
Hi Najib,
Yep I was spooked out and had it been a commercial campaign, I guess I would’ve been MEGA outraged, but seeing as it teaches a lesson to you as a consumer, it felt appropriate (plus i felt somewhat relieved that it’s not someone malicious)… but i still have the itch to find out when will they delete the fake account. So yes, the campaign teeters at the edge, but i think its creators know that and were willing to take the risk..
Najib, I have to agree with you, my first reaction to this tactic was the same as yours.If it had happened to me and I later discovered it was a joke or some strategy to prove a point, I would have not found it to be worth the stress. Most people reacted with a “aw, you got me!” and I was glad to see someone else reacted as I did.
Darine,
Just so you know, you can never delete a profile on facebook. There is no such option under you sent an email to FB explaining you. You can only deactivate it.
As far as the campaign is concerned, I still don’t see how stealing one’s identity can help protect against counterfeit products or encourage Lebanese to report it, noting that if FB did not delete your other profile yet, it means they were convinced it was fake 🙂
darine and joe, you dont know anything about marketing or IT Najjib know it all.
i loved the campain by the way
Thats my issue with the campaign, it’s related to identity theft and not piracy or counterfeit products.
John,
Are you okay?