Dore Deceptive and Abusive Advertising
Take a close look at the screen shot below.
Its the results from a Yahoo search on the term British Dyslexia Association (BDA) and the first of the results, in the light grey box, is an advert. By the way is says ‘British Dyslexia Association’ in big letters you might think that its an advert for the BDA. Look closer and you will see its an advert for Dore / DDAT.
Thats right. Dore is trying to trick people into clicking the link to his company.
This is an appalling piece of deceptive advertising and for Dore to take advantage of people in such a manner is an abuse of his company’s wealth. It is also, I believe, illegeal under UK law. Dore have been in trouble over advertising before but these have been technical slips or live interviews where some allowances can be made for off-the-cuff remarks. This however is a premeditated deception. It is a marketing technique best reserved for spammers trying to sell penis extensions or fake rolex watches.
I will be forwarding a copy of this post to Wynford Dore and I encourage everyone to email with a complaint.
UPDATE: I’ve received personal communication from Wynford Dore in which he has disavowed the advert and some hours later the advert is no longer appearing. Myomancy offered Wynford Dore the opportunity to publish a statement or comment on this incident but none has been received.
Find Out More:
Books:
January 11th, 2006
Dyslexia, Dore Achievement Centres, Commercial Dyslexia Centres & Treatments
Comments on: Dore Deceptive and Abusive Advertising
Chris, I just tried it again in Google–DDAT does not come up, even in sponsored links.
I agree that DDAT’s behavior is heinous.
Posted by: liz January 11th, 2006 at 5:54 pm
Yahoo search US did not return DDAT, though, did return BDA.
Posted by: liz January 11th, 2006 at 5:57 pm
Just tried it on the UK search and it doesn’t appear anymore there either. It looks like Dore has pulled it.
Posted by: Chris Tregenza January 11th, 2006 at 6:27 pm
More heinous behavior, this time from Sylvan (a giant U.S. firm that offers out-of-school academic help).
Chris, you and I sometimes disagree, but I do appreciate your dedication and your work.
Here’s the link:
http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2006/01/mendacious_adve.html
Posted by: liz January 16th, 2006 at 8:13 am
Have you heard about the learning breakthrough programme? www.learningbreakthrough.com it is the programme this quy Dore has based his programme on. I represent the Learning Breakthrough Programme in Europe, our programme can be researched on our website and people can judge for themselves.
Posted by: paul stapleton January 20th, 2006 at 11:29 am
From a TECHNICAL point of view, you searched “British Dyslexia Association” and got the DORE/DDAT website which had an article about the BDA. That is what search engines do. It isn’t dishonest, it isn’t DORE/ DDAT’s fault, it is the nature of searches. DORE/DDAT is not dishonest in this respect.
Posted by: peter June 26th, 2006 at 12:10 am
Peter,
This isn’t about search results, it is about adverts linked to search results and what thos adverts say.
If you click on the image to enlarge it you will be able to see that Dore is running an advert to be displayed when people search for the BDA, that appears at first glance, to be from the BDA.
There is no need for Dore to include the words British Dylexia Association in that advert over than to mislead the reader.
Chris
Posted by: Chris Tregenza June 26th, 2006 at 9:40 am
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