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Truvo: Lies, damned lies & statistics

Written on September 22nd 2009, filed under Life & Work with 10 comments.

Now before I begin my rant: it's important to remind you that what I write here is my own personal opinion. On to the good stuff.

Some corporations are lucky. They've found a nice little way to make a lot of money without doing much in return. Publishers of the Yellow Pages fell into that category until the end of the nineties. The Internet started to boom and search engines prevailed over the phone book.

With the money cow not producing much anymore these publishers need to refocus. Some, like Truvo, see an opportunity in the Search Engine Marketing market. No problems or qualms there. But let's fast forward to a press article on Truvo "announcing" their intentions. Here's a translated excerpt.

"Everyday people wander down the Internet looking for new products and services. 54% Of them use a search engine. 32% use the Gouden Gids (Yellow Pages) Online." - From Truvo press response.

That's just total bullshit. There's simply no other word to describe this. I take care of several sites that advertise on the online version of the Yellow Pages and If 32% use the Yellow Pages, I can only assume that our analytics packages aren't tracking thousands of visits.

I'm certain that there is some truthiness in these numbers. I don't think Truvo would be so stupid as to pull them out of their ass. They most likely asked respondents if they've ever used the Yellow Pages and then simply ran with that. There's simply no way, based on the numbers I've seen, that 32% of the Belgian Internet population uses the Yellow Pages Online.

They've just made themselves tens of times bigger than they actually are. What's in a word or a number? What does it say about your corporate integrity when you blatenly and knowingly deceive like that?

I ran a quick survey here at home. Of the people who used to frequently use the bookversion Yellow Pages (ages 50 and up), neither can recall an active visit to the online version in the past year. To add insult to injury, one of them said: "I wouldn't even know where to find them. I'd have to google them."

32% my ass...

10 Comments so far

Add your own

  1. Rudi - September 22nd 2009 - 20:05

    Hi Tim,
    I wouldn’t dare to doubt about the results of your quick survey or even call it a lie grin  All I can believe in are serious surveys or CIM/Metriweb figures.  But of course everyone wants to tell his own story and SEM folks prefer to tell all search is done on Google and not on Yellow Pages.  Objective people will know that the thruth is somewhere in the middle.

  2. Tim Ceuppens - September 23rd 2009 - 7:37

    Hi Rudi,

    with a number so high as 32% I’m sure the middle has been moved ever so slightly to the left wink

  3. Tom - September 28th 2009 - 19:21

    I guess that tracking and measuring isn’t that cultivated yet within Truvo. We can forgive them, but the question is, will customers forgive them?

    I wonder where the other 46% look for new services? Is there a white paper of this weird survey?

  4. Thomas - October 5th 2009 - 14:24

    @Tom Just look in the stack “nice to brag about but not able to confirm”.

  5. eoin - November 22nd 2009 - 3:03

    I know for a fact that truvo are full of shit. i used to work for them. they sell magic beans. The level of lies they peddle is actually incredible. So much so that if i told you everything you’d probably have ahard time believing it. For example.. say you buy an ad on goldenpages.ie for €2850 for one year.. how would you feel if for 2 WHOLE MONTHS.. you were described as a “pervert” on your own advert? I’m not kidding… oh. and watch this space.

  6. Rudi - November 22nd 2009 - 14:54

    Guys, this is really becoming silly, especially if this becomes a channel for frustated ex-Truvo people.
    Does anyone have rational arguments here?
    Or a fair approach to try to play the competitor?

  7. Tim Ceuppens - November 22nd 2009 - 15:16

    I can see how one reply would make it a channel for frustration. wink

    Yeah, valid and rational argument there…

    That said, it isn’t supposed to become a channel for this.

  8. eoin - November 23rd 2009 - 1:05

    “So much so that if i told you everything you’d probably have ahard time believing it.”

    you ve just proved my point rudy.

    that was truth i told. you think i found this page by accident.
    certain people dont want to believe large multi nationals are just purely corrupt. they are. get over it. i aint frustrated.

    cheers

  9. dikes - November 23rd 2009 - 7:29

    yeah right, so they’re only selling ads for advertisers to tell the world the advertiser is a pervert.  I could believe this was an individual action of a sales guy, but that does not make the company corrupt.  And pretty sure the guy is gone now.
    will leave this discussion now, let me know if you want to discuss the real topic again and have fun here guys grin

  10. Tim Ceuppens - November 23rd 2009 - 8:11

    Children please. This is no place for a disgruntled ex-Truvo employee and an obvious member of Truvo Belgium’s direction staff to fight.

    Comments closed.

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