Copycat Marketing

This has been another email topic of late.

This is how it works. A cosmetic product like USB/BP mineral oil, often used as baby oil, with or without fragrance for example, gets fantastic reviews online. Then, a totally unrelated cosmetic product that previously had mixed reviews at best has the same, or almost the exact same positive reviews.

That is the basis of copycat marketing, which is not restricted to cosmetic products. As more companies pay for product reviews with money, goods or discounts, copycat positive, and negative reviews to dis the competition, will continue.

As I just said on Twitter, in a shorter version in agreement to an email about this, copycat positive reviews cannot suddenly make any product work better than it has been reported to perform in the past.

See Also
This blog post

Misbranded Cosmetics

I still get emails on this topic. I replied on Twitter but I will state the facts here too.

Misbranded cosmetics See paragraph "b" and "hair grower" 2014, FDA, revised

It means any cosmetic marketing for products natural or otherwise, promoting hair growth with no approved new drug application is in violation of FDA regulations. That does not stop small companies marketing their products online and elsewhere in violation of the regulations, until they get caught. More should be caught.

The FDA regulations apply to large and small companies and are in place to ensure companies can prove what is claimed, not just make money. Other countries have similar if not the same regulations. Any cosmetic company that is boldly violating government marketing regulations, I have no doubt is violating other regulations as well.

See Also
This blog post