Top Affiliate Challenge Sucks

Ok so I’m not sure if I’m the first one to write about this…but the Top Affiliate Challenge TV show officially sucks. It looked like it could be O.K. at best, but after finding out how it works and watching the first episode, I can confirm why I knew it would be a waste of time and money to audition and try to get on the show. Here’s why :

  • Their whole “business model” for competition is stupid. The goal is to make “as much money as possible through affiliate marketing”. They look at revenue as making money, and not profit. So a team can spend $5,000 in PPC and only make $1,000 in revenue. That’s a $4,000 net loss but in the eyes of TAC, you just made $1,000.
  • How do they expect you to learn and get a profitable campaign running in like 2 hours? The team that wins will simply be the team that takes a little loss and switches their campaigns over to the team’s affiliate link. I was working with Team XY7 a little and was about to move over a campaign that does ~$1,500/day (they would still fund it), but just thinking about doing something like that for this show is completely pointless. That’s totally against the point of having a challenge to find the “top affiliate”.
  • The camera work looks like it was done with a $100 Flip video camera and edited by a 15 year old freshman in high-school. There’s cheesy ass hues on the border of the screen, ridiculous looking fonts, the whole thing looks insanely cheap. They’ll be talking and it will just break the frame and cut to a new one, it’s not smooth at all.
  • The host looks like she just learned how to read and is reading the script off a piece of paper. Oh wait, you’ll see her looking at the ground all the time, and the awesome camera man has her script showing laying on the floor.
  • The gurus pulled together their elite resources and drove a massive $200 revenue for the win on the first day.
  • We have The Apprentice in NYC, American Idol is Los Angeles, Survivor on some crazy Chinese island, and Top Affiliate Challenge in…Nebraska. Could they have picked a more boring venue?
  • I just skimmed through the second episode which leaked on Google Video. Team XY7 lost, so one of their teammates was going to get voted off. Then they had an individual immunity challenge, somebody from a different team won it. Why the hell would someone that wouldn’t get voted off anyways win an immunity ring? The guy is a saint though and ends up giving it to someone from XY7. The hostess then tells him it doesn’t even matter, because that person is safe anyways. Umm…pointless?

My prediction : many affiliates on the show will truly realize how pointless the competition is and when that happens, things will start to get really stupid and it’ll be funny to see how the TAC deals with it. That’ll at least be some entertainment.

I have nothing against Thor as he was nice to me when I chatted with him about auditioning, but the show is a complete mess. I can’t even sit through a full episode without being completely bored to death, the show teaches absolutely nothing about affiliate marketing, and since it’s not even entertaining it’s completely pointless to watch.


27 Comments

  1. Marco
    July 4, 2008

    The difference is that with Joel Comm’s “The Next Internet Millionaire”, the filming, editing & end product was all of a professional broadcastable standard.

  2. July 4, 2008

    I’m off to watch episode three. Hmmm… I have a way to make this whole TAC actually humerous. I’ll wait to tell you until I’m done though…

  3. Marco
    July 4, 2008

    The host makes me laugh, she is so uncomfortable on screen.

    She doesn’t make much sense either, this is a statement she made in episode three.

    “our first place team….rail roaded the competition, they not only pulled out all stops, but they made the other two teams…..put to shame…..they came out on top……anything I’ve seen so far.”

  4. July 4, 2008

    Lame Show. Watched Half An Episode I think. It’s a waste of time. Looks like some bored lame dude took his phone camera and decided to start a Show.

  5. July 4, 2008

    shit link bait dude

  6. Tundra
    July 4, 2008

    pfffffft

    this you couldn’t be more right. affiliate marketing is boring stuff (even if the marketers themselves aren’t boring). it’s like trying to make a reality show out of factory work…it’s just not going to entertain.

    and as far as making a show about the clowns at WF or nickyfags, it’s not gonna work either….it’d be like watching my ten-year-old cousins run around the yard fighting with each other while one hits their head on a rock.

  7. 100% bang on!!!

  8. July 5, 2008

    Episode 3 was an improvement. At least the show is going in the right direction now.

  9. John
    July 5, 2008

    The show is so embarrassing!

    The only reason I watch it is because of the smokin’ hot host. She needs to drop the affected announcer crap though.

  10. July 5, 2008

    > I don’t know why they didn’t just use YouTube or Revver or whatever else off the bat.

    Unless you have a special arrangement with either, you can’t upload more than 10 minutes of video – Google Video doesn’t have that cutoff.

    I think they should have gone with Fliqz.com or Magnify.net for longer length video hosting that still looks good.

  11. July 5, 2008

    whatever you say, but i like it much.
    good for newbies :D

  12. July 6, 2008

    Hey I’m a freshman! Or atleast was so watch it. But I couldn’t agree more I stopped watching affiliate challenge since the first horrible boring video from the fat guy interviewing shoemoney.

  13. mr brain
    July 6, 2008

    The TAC is the worst show ever, they wasted 5 minute introduce participant, wasted 10 minute showing who win who lose without showing how much expense, how much traffic, how much revenue, just some stupid random figure. Then they wasted another 10-20 minute showing absolutely boring and useless conversation that have nothing to do with affiliate marketing, TAC SUCK TO HELL, IT IS TOO PAINFUL TO WATCH

  14. July 6, 2008

    Shoemoney has had a lot of ppc affiliate experience to be fair..

  15. July 7, 2008

    LOL! This was a hilarious read… good thing I haven’t checked out this Top Affiliate Challenge… because looks like I’m not missing much!

    Jay

  16. July 7, 2008

    I’m not even joking when I say that my first movie was better filmed than this. Holy crap.

    The host is super annoying, can’t talk and repeates herself constantly. This sucks.

  17. July 8, 2008

    I watched about 30 seconds, and was instantly bored. Maybe when I get some spare time I will actually watch it if I can stand it.

    Shudogg Dot Com – Make Money Online Blogging

  18. July 10, 2008

    Well, lots and LOTS of people are getting exposed from this… :D

    Jay

  19. July 11, 2008

    Mang, i was expecting to WHOLE hell of a lot of better production, branding, high impact, and quality. Its poor video, video editing, kind of remind me of being back in school watching old PBS learning specials from the 1980’s.

    Also I did not understand why the episodes where all about sitting down and talkin in front of a camera or talkin in a conference room, I started sleeping on it. Mang! But TheNextInternetMillionaire was the SH*&T, Tru

    I aggree with you and Ian about the show.

    For a show with a $3,000 budget, u get what u get. LOL! hahahahah!

    The show really shows me how much better my YouTube videos are even better. lol

  20. July 11, 2008

    BTW, who using fuckin google to use as a video host? with that poor quality encoding. lol

  21. July 13, 2008

    blah blah….. I must agree with most of the above comments. The video quaity is poor, sound, effect, no consistancy…. What about Editing???????????? This does not do anything to promote but promote the Affiliates to other blogger or marketers. This makes all of us look pretty bad…Was their a deadline that was missed? Even if you have a 3,000 budget, come one, they had some of the best creative minds their. The companies should had provided them with the proper support. Someone call Cuban and ask him to sponsor the challange. Infact I will email him myself. Cuban vs Trump – hands down; Cuban would be interested in the pitch.

    Be nice

  22. July 13, 2008

    yikes, my entry was lost!!!

    I must agree with most of the above post. Please…why did they produce such a joke? The video, quality, sound (non existant), The teams No problem hands down you guys were great. The proper support was their for a succesful show. My two cents is work the next production and get Cuban involved. Why not? He still needs a show to beat Trumps. This is not a bad idea. The teams and the affiliates all win some deserved recognition.

    I give this a 2** out of 5***** / The teams 5 all the way.

    Be good :)

  23. July 13, 2008

    Top Affiliate Challenge…What a joke
    Well becoming a team sponsor for the Top Affiliate Challenge ended up being a very disappointing endeavor. As it turns out the shows producer, who takes 50% of what each affiliate “earned” (or got kicked back) ran a very poor show. All the reviews online were poor. The rules were thrown out the window on day one and it turned into a game of who can call in more favors. We seriously considered withdrawing and publicly denouncing the show on day 2 but figured lets see what happened and it only got worse….I have emailed the shows producer for an explanation as to some of the happening I got first hand from my affiliate manager I sent there and also some contestants as of yet no response…

  24. July 15, 2008

    The sound quality is awful on the videos, no consistency whatsoever on the overall experience. Cheesy graphics as mentioned at it is totally boring. A waste of time. Cool idea but the execution just doesn’t do it. 1 minute of this and I was ready to hang myself.

  25. i was pissed when your team came out in pepperjam shirts. totally disprespected your company. i told one of them to not do it and have some balls. oh wel…..

    big jason

  26. May 7, 2009

    The affiliate marketing and PPC (Pay Per Click) are two different think. Affiliate can be great but PPC is just time wasting!

  27. January 25, 2010

    yooou are right! funny how collins dad asked if the reality show was made by wedding videographers…. so true…. lol

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