There’s been a huge rise of parody websites as many popular sites are being imitated because of their success. Parody can be part of a marketing strategy to gain exposure by poorly imitating well known websites. There are certainly advantages for making parody sites, but the disadvantages can outweigh them.
The advantage of having a parody website is that you get more exposure early on than the average. That’s all thanks to the exposure from the original owner, media, and word of mouth. With such traffic early on, anyone will be tempted to make a parody website. Now on to the disadvantages…
One of the main disadvantages of using parody is the loss of your own identity as you are sort of using the original’s identity. The parody site owner is more or less reinforcing the image of the original owner by their style and format. Another disadvantage is the potential legal actions that may be taken against the parody site owner. Being at the mercy of the original that can shut you down is not very pleasant. The last disadvantage would be that you will never be as big as the original as parodies are just shadows of a bigger entity.
Parody has its risk and advantages. It is very much short term gain, long term drain. That is the result of all parody websites. It is best to know the advantages and disadvantages of such marketing strategy before employing them.
8 Comments
You are right, but what happens when the parody site evolves and become a total diferent site from the original ??
As it evolves it will still have some remnants of the original but it will be one step closer to being different. However, it may or may not achieve true originality. That all depends on how much it evolves.
As I watch John Cow try to evolve they can’t seem to completely break free of John Chow. So it would appear that your post hit the nail on the head.
Yea, they are trying hard to break free. But their domain name is like a double edged sword.
The problem with these sites is that they don’t give people enough reason to go back, so they will not attract a sustainable audience. Once you “get the joke” it becomes a bit boring.
That’s right Steve, it is another handicap every parody website will face.
Thank you very much for your post. We have included it in our current Carnival of Small Business Issues - “The Canarian” - Edition #25 — Mary S. for fcon21.biz
There is advantage and disadvantage of using Entrecard,but it depends on us how to use it.If you drop and bounce ,this is the same goes to you.We should always interact with each other.What i do is i will send a thank you message to those who always drop at my blog and advertisers.With these ,i build up a strong relationship with them instead of just drop,drop and drop.This is absolutely not a Entrecard’s objective.
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