Affiliate Marketing Will Never Change (Its Name)

Why can’t Affiliate Marketing become Performance Marketing or Traffic Marketing or Referral Marketing or SuperCoolLeadGeneratingMachine Marketing?

  • Jacob became Israel.
  • Allen Konigsberg became Woody Allen.
  • Alphonso D’Abruzzo became Alan Alda.
  • Archibald Leech became Cary Grant.
  • Margaret Hyra became Meg Ryan.
  • Issur Danielovitch became Kirk Douglas.
  • Tom Mapother became Tom Cruise.

Are those in the affiliate marketing industry stuck with the name “affiliate marketing” forever?

Yes.

There’s no getting around it

Why? Because what “affiliate marketing” represents is a collection of vasts interests and parties without a spider present to keep the web together. That means that as much as we’d like to rebrand, we can’t.

Why? Because in a network structure with very few hubs and mostly nodes, entities outside of the network define the name and identity. Try as we might, we don’t have the ability to change the name of the affiliate marketing industry, but we do have the power to transform it from the inside-out.

The actors listed above made the name changes early, before they were tagged with an emotional aftertaste. You can’t think of Tom Cruise without thinking of Mission Impossible or jumping on couches. After his image troubles last year and being dropped by his studio contract, it seemed that his career might be fading and in trouble of collapsing in on its own weight. Did he rename himself again? No. Instead of rebranding himself via his name, he had a baby and married a young attractive female.

So instead of trying to rename the industry, let’s push forward and escape the 1999 paradigm that has ensnared our industry.

How do we do that??
Conversations.

4 Replies to “Affiliate Marketing Will Never Change (Its Name)”

  1. Stephanie Agresta December 1, 2006 at 10:51

    “Did he rename himself again? No. Instead of rebranding himself via his name, he had a baby and married a young attractive female.”

    The equivalent for us to to come up with new and innovative ways to utilize the Internet to change people’s lives. Us being “affiliate marketers.” I’m with Sam – innovation is the answer, not a new name.

    FYI – Tom was born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV on July 3. Graduated the same high school as me … Glen Ridge High School in Glen Ridge, NJ. (he was there a bit earlier than me though… graduated in 1980). I did meet him when I was in 8th grade and he came back for his sister’s graduation. Got his autograph even. “Best Wishes Stephanie… Tom Cruise.” He was right on the heels of Risky Biz… and Rebecca D. was with him. I thought it was GREAT. I knew he had star quality. 🙂

    Reply

  2. Stephanie Agresta December 1, 2006 at 10:51

    “Did he rename himself again? No. Instead of rebranding himself via his name, he had a baby and married a young attractive female.”

    The equivalent for us to to come up with new and innovative ways to utilize the Internet to change people’s lives. Us being “affiliate marketers.” I’m with Sam – innovation is the answer, not a new name.

    FYI – Tom was born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV on July 3. Graduated the same high school as me … Glen Ridge High School in Glen Ridge, NJ. (he was there a bit earlier than me though… graduated in 1980). I did meet him when I was in 8th grade and he came back for his sister’s graduation. Got his autograph even. “Best Wishes Stephanie… Tom Cruise.” He was right on the heels of Risky Biz… and Rebecca D. was with him. I thought it was GREAT. I knew he had star quality. 🙂

    Reply

  3. Never thought we’d be making Tom Cruise/Affiliate Marketing analogies to support a point about the future of the industry!

    Good points, Stephanie. We won’t hold the Tom Cruise fanship against you (too much).

    Reply

  4. Never thought we’d be making Tom Cruise/Affiliate Marketing analogies to support a point about the future of the industry!

    Good points, Stephanie. We won’t hold the Tom Cruise fanship against you (too much).

    Reply

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