Subscribe by Email30,000 people fall for ComputerTan hoax
February 10, 2009 by Johnny Daniels | 5 commentsBy Johnny Daniels
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
This is overwhelming proof that people really will fall for anything they hear and read.
A UK skin cancer charity called Skcin wanted to raise more awareness of the medical condition so they set up a fake website called ComputerTan. This site promised people a suntan from nothing more than the heat rays from their PC monitors while they type. You can feel “tan-tastic!”
But the 30,000 people who were gullible enough to click on the link for more information were instead confronted with pictures of people with tumors and were given statistics and facts on the condition.
All in all, this is a pretty slick, savvy and humorous marketing campaign and since it managed to hit the news headlines in the UK, it seems to have done the trick. It’s hard to believe though that anyone seriously thought that they were going to get a suntan from their PC monitor!
- RushmoreDrive – a search engine for black people?
- The iPod that will let you store 500,000 songs
- Buy a lifesize lego replica of yourself for $60,000
- Who are the people who define the Internet?
I don’t know that I’d categorize everyone who clicked on that link as a victim to a hoax. I, for one, would be willing to follow the link to see what the joke was.
Is that supposed to be like the pics on a cigarette pack? I don’t think those worked either.
Interesting way to get your message across. More clicks, but less reliability and trust.
I wonder if it’ll work on CRT monitors ROFL
hahaha, great one, will forward it to sis right now :-)