Marketing Won-O-One

I’m going to call this a poor attempt at marketing collateral by CareerOne. But really, when I say that, I’m just being polite. At best, it’s incompetent. At worst, a fabrication of data. And regular readers will know how it is with me and correct statistical representations…

Let’s play a bit of Where’s Wally.

First up: Where’s the spelling error in this??

Next up: How do you spell CareeeeeerOne again??

Now’s the icing on the cake. This one is more difficult to spot as most folks do not have access to Nielsen//NetRatings data (perhaps that’s what the folks in marketing at CareerOne are relying on).

In the the graph below, CareerOne illustrates its supposed Year on Year growth, quoting as its source Nielsen//NetRatings market intelligence.

The graph below illustrates the actual Nielsen//NetRatings data:

While in both graphs, the CareerOne data is consistent, the results for Seek and MyCareer have been drastically altered in the CareerOne graph. For example, CareerOne represents Seek as having 0% growth for May’08, but the Nielsen//NetRatings data actually demonstrates nearly 15% growth for Seek. Therefore, the representation of data in the CareerOne graph is basically fictitious. This may have occurred because the person who redrew the graph inputted the data incorrectly, reversing Seek’s and MyCareer’s results.

The errors in this advertising denigrate CareerOne’s reputation in the market, don’t you agree?

And the really sad thing is – CareerOne didn’t have to fudge the results. They were leading in the growth stakes anyway…

My advice to the folks at CareerOne would be thus: get yourselves a decent copy editor who at least makes sure your name is spelled correctly in your ads, and don’t misrepresent your competitors.

You never know who’s watching.