Kimkins Controversy - Kimkins Scam

Responsible Consumer Reporting

I was searching on YouTube for recent ABC news footage and instead I found a new upload of the old story about the incident involving Wendy’s chili. I thought that it was irresponsible of BusinessAndMedia.org to upload this footage without mentioning in the description that it turned out to be a fraud. The woman from Las Vegas made a mind bogglingly bad lie when the police investigation was starting to make some headway. She cited emotional distress as her reason for not pursuing a civil case against Wendy’s. I haven’t been directly involved in any lawsuits, but I am pretty sure that emotional distress is usually a golden ticket, not a reason to quit.

Eventually, she was sentenced to nine years in jail.

WENDY’S chili is quite tasty and it is good value. I haven’t eaten any in a couple of years, but it used to be a favorite.

Does Media Coverage Hurt Kimkins Sales?

The adage that there is no such thing as bad press, has got to be one of the most enduring ‘not quite true’ adages ever. In the moment, the Woman’s World coverage was tremendously beneficial to Heidi Diaz, but it probably hastened the exposure of the fraud. In contrast, the eventual coverage of the fraud by mainstream media might have inadvertently caused a small up tick in sales.

Now that ABC News is working on a story about the Kimkins diet scam, the website will get a big spike in traffic. I sounds crazy to say that this will increase sales when it is a story about a fraud and about a diet that some doctors and dietitians have advised against trying. This reminds me, has anyone ever published an analogy between post exposure Kimkins membership and those women who mail proposals to men on death row?

More About Cleansing…

There’s something that I didn’t get into when I was critiquing the sunshine enema of a fluff news piece about Isagenix. They do not allude in any way to what the stuff actually does. Cleansing involves a lot of pooping. That is not hinted at even once. Maybe Disney Corporation likes to pretend that pooping doesn’t exist due to the fact that Donald Duck is walking around with no pants on. I had a pet duck once. Ducks poop.

When TV News Makes Nice

Isagenix is a cleansing product that is marketed by a company based in Chandler, Arizona.

You would get whiplash if you were to watch this video of ABC and its coverage of the product right after watching KTLA’s coverage of the Kimkins fraud. I am not disparaging Isagenix. I am sure they have all their ducks in a row as far as the FDA and the FTC are concerned. I do get the impression that the consumer report is really a sales pitch. If the three people on the video like to think of themselves as journalists, they must stop off somewhere after work for a few ounces of soul cleanser. The tone of the anchor man is the same tone that Ryan Seacrest uses when he says something heterosexual.

The television footage was uploaded by what appears to be an affiliate for the product.

People Continue to Defend Heidi and Kimkins

YouTube commentary is truly the lowest form of discourse. The anonymity encourages people to throw all semblance of civility out the window. Lying and outright outrageousness are pastimes for many users. But I digress… what I really wanted to post about was the fact that someone chose to post a comment on the YouTube version of the Heidi Diaz surveillance video this week. It is not a smart ass kid or a petty jokester, someone wanted to express their outrage about the exposure and defend the diet against its detractors. I will quote it in its entirety:

People should be ashamed of themselves. Invading someone’s privacy because the diet failed for you or caused a side effect. NEWSFLASH, all diets cause side effects, some minimal and others more extreme. No one held a gun to your head and forced you to join the kimkins site or to even do the diet. This diet works wonders for people who are SEVERLY obese, not people who need to lose 10 pounds to fit into their party dress for the weekend.

I think that this 25 year old American Girl with the really pretty name and no videos or favorites might even be Kimmer.

Baiting Haters on YouTube

Sarah Fights Back Against Rude You Tubers is an interesting phenomenon. A vlogger from Diet.com had received a lot of very rude comments on a previous video and she decided to highlight them and give the misanthropes the attention that they craved. The interesting thing was that she got a LOT of attention herself. The video was one of yesterday’s most watched videos. I actually don’t like the tone or the content of the video that got all the nasty comments. I worry sometimes about whether the YouTube generation will be able to carry out polite social discourse when they enter adult life.

The Cost of Dieting

ABC put together an interesting news piece about the cost of dieting. It’s kind of ironic that so many people pay a premium for systems that reduce their caloric intake. Programs that include special packaged foods are some of the most expensive diets. Atkins is a plan that does not require branded foods, but they have lots of them on the market.

I was surprised to read that some plans increase the family food bill by way of increasing the volume of condiments and spices. This effect can often be offset by the fact that reduced portions mean buying less overall.

This is a historic moment for this blog as I present my first actual cooking tip… I regularly make applesauce for the kids by boiling down cored and quartered apples with the peelings on them. After I squeeze the sauce through a colander, the peels become a relatively low carb treat with just a few drops of cream and some cinnamon

Life Without Television

Do you have a television in your bedroom? If you do, I would like to suggest that you take it out of there.

Television is a source of information and entertainment. It is also a terrible time suck. It lulls you into passively accepting the information that is contained in it’s never ending stream of content and advertisements. I just had a childhood memory of my mother complaining about the fast food commercials. She was not struggling with her weight. She just hated it that they would give her cravings when we lived 40 miles away from those restaurants.

Television Reaches People

For an example of the effectiveness of television as a promotional media, there has been a spike of search engine traffic coming to this site because of some talk about Kimkins on national television. It was just a rerun of the Mike and Juliet Show, but it was during the tear end holidays when people are thinking about dieting while still digesting Christmas turkey.

If you have a product or a business that you want to promote, you should not overlook the potential of TV media as a promotional tool. You also have to keep in mind that making a successful television advertisement requires a specific set of skills and talents. Hawthorne Direct has over 20 years experience in advertising. Hawthorne Direct is now creating cross-channel marketing campaigns that can increase your sales and generate leads. They have some great video presentations showcasing past promotions for business and government. They create infomercials in both long and short form.

The return on investment from these marketing campaigns is what brings big names like Jenny Craig and Mercedes Benz to this promotions company. Speaking of ROI, I was astounded to see just how much a company like Jenny Craig spends on advertising. I’m not going to publish the figure that I saw because I couldn’t corroborate it, but I had a discussion with a marketer I know and I was told that they probably expect every dollar spent to bring in two or more dollars of increase sales.

BlogTalkRadio: All I Hear is Talking

I am going to mention BlogTalkRadio even though every time that I give it a whirl, I have to turn away from it fairly quickly. I think that listening to audio conversations is just too time consuming and too distracting to fit into my lifestyle. Everyone is different, though and some people who are reading my blog might really enjoy some of the content that exists in both live and archived versions on BlogTalkRadio.

I found a New Year’s edition of a fitness and weight loss blogger’s broadcast in which he talks with the FlyLady. They take calls and they do a LOT of back patting and cheerleading. I love the Fly Lady. Her ideas have been a lifesaver, but I still don’t listen to her broadcasts.