Guide: how to create and sell fake products (parody)

Are you willing to start a new business but struggle with ideas? Have you ever been jealous of Google’s, Facebook’s or Nike’s success? Don’t worry. You are not alone. There are hundreds of thousands of people craving to start their own successful business. Fortunately, I have cracked the formula of how you can easily achieve the success. This is the ultimate growth-hacker’s guide to creating and selling fake products (knock-offs).

I could not have completed this guide without Chinese marketing gurus. They have been practicing these techniques (that I am about to reveal) for a long time. Before we start, some statistics: 149 cups of coffee, 1863 images of real examples and 239 case studies analyzed, 623 hours of googling were required to complete this guide. No, not really.

#1. Brand name

Every awesome business starts with an awesome brand name. There are few techniques that can be used here.

#1.1. Find a popular brand, copy it’s name and switch few letters. This should do the trick. The most important thing - no one will ever notice that you have copied something. Other companies spend weeks or months creating a brand name, logo, brand book. You will spend less than 5 minutes. Isn’t that amazing? This technique is more agile than the AGILE methodology itself. Genius! Here are few examples for inspiration.

Warning! Don’t try too hard. You should switch letters only in your brand name (not everywhere). Don’t switch letters on labels (i.e. country of origin). See the example below.

#1.2. Use an existing brand name and change at least half of it (advanced marketing technique). This is an alternative to the tip #1. If you are not confident with your creativity, skip this step. Otherwise - continue reading. Personally I recommend this way, because it guarantees viral effect. People will be amazed by the creative side of yours and will be spreading the word about your business (that’s the real word of mouth here!). Take a look below and you’ll understand what I mean.

#1.3. But if you feel tired (or have no time), feel free to copy a brand name without any modifications. This should do the trick as well (although the outcome might not be as good as of tip #2).

#2. Logo

The next step is a logo of your brand name. This should take less than hour. If you spend more time on this, you’re doing something wrong. Remember - the internet is full of icons and images to use. The best practice is to use something familiar, yet slightly different.

#3. Product

The product doesn’t matter, actually. You’re gonna copy something anyway, right? The key point of this chapter is product’s credibility. You will need some sort of quality badge or other proof of quality. The formula: Keyword + famous brand name. As for keyword, use any of these: “100%”, “Quality guaranteed”, “High quality”, etc. Take a look at the example below. 

#4. Promotion

#4.1. Celebrities! Use any random celebrity (or more than one) in your marketing campaign. Why you should use them? Because they attract customers. It’s that simple. Few examples:

#4.2. If possible, fake a celebrity by yourself. Show everyone that you are a brilliant and really creative marketer. Example - fake Steve Jobs.

#5. Profanity

Another great way of getting a buzz online is to use curse words and obscenity. 

#6. Customer loyalty and word-of-mouth

Every brand needs to build a base of loyal customers and brand advocates. Usually it would require a lot of effort to achieve this. But not with this guide. You’ll need low quality materials for this trick. Put your brand’s logo where your product touches customer’s body (if possible). Take a look at the example below. See the logo inside the shoe?

Let the customer use your product for 15 minutes. Vuola! You have a new brand advocate. This strategy works best with apparel. And you know what’s even better? Low quality materials cost less. Profit!

#7. Obama. Obama everywhere. 

I call this final strategy “Obamify everything”. Put Obama’s image or name everywhere you can. Seriously. It will drive shitloads of new buyers. If you don’t believe me, take a look at these examples. They wouldn’t Obamify everything if it didn’t work, would they?

That’s it! Congratulations! You have completed Growthhacker’s guide to creating and selling fake products. We will send you a certificate and an original cap (see the picture below) proving your marketing skills. Yay, new skill in Linked In profile! 

Now go, create your own fake product and earn your first million!

Follow Marketing Shmarketing on Facebook, Twitter, Google plus.