What do they gain from this type of marketing?

A lot of marketing is dominated by the price-quality-value model of consumer behavior. Basically, the perceived value a consumer attributes to any given purchase is a function of the quality of product they expect to receive in exchange for the price they expect to pay.

According to this model, higher expected quality and lower expected price both increase the perceived value of a product. So marketers do whatever they can to manipulate your perception of those factors (since value is, in the end, a subjective judgment of the consumer).

A celebrity’s endorsement is aimed at increasing the consumer’s evaluation of the product’s quality, whereas the advertised discount (even if completely fake or misleading) is aimed at minimizing the consumer’s perceived tradeoffs.

In short, they’re trying to convince potential buyers that they are getting more for less. It’s an extremely common strategy, but there are more and less subtle ways of employing it. This way is less subtle, which limits its appeal. But no ad campaign is aimed at everyone.

@SavoirFaire thank you for the analysis. I only caught on to this very recently so I guess it’s more effective than I thought. The only reason why I’m put off by it is because I have participated in those courses before and I was totally infuriated at the quality, so I know I would just waste my time joining the courses. I can see some people around me totally buying into it, especially when it is framed in a way that makes the people behind it look like saints descended to Earth to help everyone achieve their biggest dream.

And also I have never ever heard of the “celebrities” mentioned in the ads. Either I live under a rock or they are celebrities because the marketers say so.

@Mimishu1995

“And also I have never ever heard of the ‘celebrities’ mentioned in the ads.”

It could be that the “fame” of those “celebrities” is occicentric.

Do you remember any of their names, or the names of the course sponsors?

@Brian1946, what does “occicentric” mean? Dictionary.com doesn’t have it.

@kneesox

It’s supposed to mean skewed or biased towards that which is occidental.

I just made it up, but apparently I’m not the first to use it.

I guess it’s an NMTA* phenomenon. ;-)

*Neologistic Minds Think Alike.

@Brian1946 I don’t remember any names. They are just so random. It’s like those people just pop out of nowhere. And most of them only appear once.

Now that you mention it, I start to wonder why there are so many famous personality out there. Is there some kind of factory where they manufacture celebrities? :P

In some ways, You Tube is one of those factories.

@Mimishu1995 The thing about the price-quality-value model is that it’s all about the consumer’s perceptions. You know that the courses are bad, so there’s no way to convince you they are worthwhile. But someone who doesn’t know that might be interested in what they think the content will be. Or they might be willing to substitute the celebrity’s endorsement for their own judgment. Again, it won’t really work if you don’t know who the celebrities are. But this just tells us that you aren’t the target audience for these ads.

The interesting thing about the specific ads that you are looking at is how the model continues to be used even for terrible products. When someone is selling a bad product, their strategy is almost always to get as many people as possible to purchase from them one time rather than focusing on retaining customers for multiple purchases. This actually makes it more likely that they will recruit “minor” celebrities (people who are newly famous, people with niche audiences, people who are still building their audience, or people trying to cash in as their fame starts to fade). They cost less and tend to be less discerning about what they will endorse.

It also means they don’t care if you—someone who knows their product is bad—looks at their advertisement with scorn. They’re trying to get in, make some money, get out, dissolve their company, and reform or rebrand it next year for a whole new audience. Basically, it’s the most cynical form of marketing. But it still uses the same techniques as those more sophisticated marketers who have better products.