Dr Oz: Poster Child for Weight Loss Spammers

Dr. Oz is a popular daytime talk show host whose career was launched by Oprah Winfrey. Since 2009, Dr. Oz has been a mainstay in daytime television, discussing health and weight loss issues, often geared toward his largely female audience. And almost since his show began, spammers and telemarketers have used his image and video clips to promote their products.

So today we decided to check out just who the most shameless culprits are in the race to cash in on the Dr. Oz name. According to Spyfu.com, the websites advertising the most for the keyword “Dr Oz” as of 10/20/2012 are:

• greencoffeeultra.com – Yet another “slimming coffee” product that shamelessly uses Dr. Oz’s name throughout the site as they promote green coffee supplements. Dr. Oz is mentioned 11 times on their front page, though they do point out that “Dr. Oz doesn’t endorse any specific brand…”
• purehealth100.com – They sell several weight loss pills and drinks, most of which have been darlings for the supplement spammers: acai, green coffee, etc.
• ask.com – Popular site to get answers. It’s unclear why they would advertise the Dr. Oz keyword!
• myrebody.com – They sell a weight loss pill containing high-linoleic safflower oil.
• realdose.com – Heavily advertised weight loss supplement. We have nearly 200 comments on our page about this product, here.
• trimdownclub.com – A rather nice weight loss site containing articles, menu planning, diet journal, and community support.
• acmevitamin.com – A very generic-looking site with a few weight loss articles, many of which throw “Dr. Oz” in as often as possible. They promote many of the 2009-era hyped weight loss products such as acai, and resveratrol.
• meltbutteryspread.com – This is a product that apparently Dr. Oz did discuss on his show, as evidenced by a video they have on their site.
• wulongforlife.com – Wu-Long, or Oolong, tea has been promoted by spammers and affiliate marketers for years. It is essentially a type of green tea that some claim promote weight loss. Whether or not it works is perhaps the subject for another article, but as with almost all of these weight loss products, you can usually find it at your local health store much quicker and cheaper.

 

The two most commonly-run Google ads for the keyword “Dr. Oz” are not affiliated with him, but are for green coffee supplements:

“Green Coffee Warning”
greencoffeeultra.com
Don’t Buy Before Seeing This – Research on Green Coffee Extracts! Why are we #1 – How it works – Order Now – FAQ

– and –

Green Coffee Bean Extract
purehealth100.com
400 mg – no additives, New 90 count size – 30% savings

Green Coffee

Green coffee appears to be the latest product that affiliate marketers are pushing while using Dr. Oz’s name and likeness. We discussed green “slimming” coffee a few months ago and pointed out that most studies indicate that there is nothing that separates green coffee from regular coffee, except maybe the higher price. Earlier this month, we wrote about a company that has been spamming us relentlessly about their green coffee product – with emails using a Dr. Oz return address.

Raspberry Ketone

In early 2012, there was a wave of affiliate marketers pushing raspberry ketone (see our full article here). While that initial surge appears to have been overtaken in recent months by green coffee, raspberry ketone was almost universally advertised after Dr. Oz discussed it on his show. In fact. Dr. Oz gave nothing more than a tentative endorsement of raspberry ketone, pending further research. His initial endorsement was sufficient for marketers, many of whom continue selling it to this day, to advertise this product as endorsed by Dr. Oz.

Oz in 2009 

As further proof that this is just the latest affiliate marketing fad, check out how many acai/cleans spammers were dropping the Oz name back in 2009, along with Rachael Ray and Oprah. Virtually all of those sites are gone now.

Bottom Line

It appears that anytime Dr. Oz mentions a possible breakthrough or “exciting new” product, there is a wave of affiliate marketers who jump all over it and promote their version of said product. What ends up happening is that they flood the market with claims of exclusivity until people realize that these products aren’t as rare as the affiliate marketers would have them believe. (Check out econsumerlifesytle.com as an example, in which they state : “Green Coffee Extract has sold out in most major stores. As of Saturday, October 20, 2012 it’s still Available Online.” This fake sense of urgency is standard fare for online marketers, and green coffee supplements are easily found online and in person).

We have written to Dr Oz for a comment on this and will post it if/when his people respond.