In my AZ Formula Review, I dissemble the sales video to find that it follows the same popular sneaky methods used by scammers to trick unsuspecting buyers into purchasing inferior & worthless products. My advice: Don’t buy it!
AZ Formula Review – Product Overview
Product Name: “AZ Formula”
Owner(s): Steven Cook, CEO & Founder
Price: The advertised price is $47. However, just below the Getting Started button on the website, there is a small line that reads, Become a AZ Formula Member Today Only $37. According to a JV data page for this product, the User is presented with a series of up-sells after the purchase.
Website: azformula.com
What’s This Product All About?
Unfortunately, there is very little to go on inside of the sales video. My best guess is that this is some sort of software, either desktop or online software that acts as a tool to increase sales for those promoting products on Amazon through their Associates Account (which is Amazon’s affiliate program.) This is the only information that can be derived with a hint of certainty from the advertising campaign for this product.
Who the Heck Is Steven Cook?
I have not been able to find any information in an extensive search on the Internet for this person. There isn’t a single thing that comes up that closely resembles this individual nor anything said of him in the product’s sales video. I tried looking up the image but came to another dead-end there. The image seems to have originated from one or more online stock image repositories that offers this particular portrait, which in full, is this individual standing against a wall. The image has been used by dentist’s offices and who knows what…
That’s all the information I can come up with about AZ Formula and its founder. Apparently the real information is intended not to be known.
Let’s now take a look at the next available thing we have – the product’s sales video. Most of this review will be devoted to this…
An Analysis of the Sales Video
For those who know what to look for in advertising, a lot can be said about the product itself. Though this isn’t true in every single case, red flags in advertising can be a very determining factor about the product. Some signs of a faulty product or service can be readily seen the use of logical fallacies and an excessive use of other types of subtle but coercive persuasion.
In simple terms, this is false and misleading advertising.
The advertising for AZ Formula closely follows popular methodologies used for inferior and downright scam products.
Flaunting of Wealth
Very often, this kind of persuasion is used. The use of eye candy through the flashing of wealth excites the emotion in a number of ways. This is a logical fallacy, the fallacy of emotional appeal which is often used in advertising. There surely is a fair share of this in every way, as the consumer sees, reads and hears it as s/he follows along.
The presence of information about wealthy in an advertisement doesn’t always mean the product is bad, but the practice of using it is commonly used by fraudulent marketers because it excites emotion in buyers. More on this later. The screenshot above, indicates that the motive for inserting the imagery shown below is, to excite emotional appeal in buyers for this product.
Unreasonable Expectations
These are outlandish claims within the advertising. In this case, there’s fantastic amounts of income that is said could or will (both used in this video) result from the use of the product within a short period of time. There are claims that immediate results will occur upon setting up the product. These claims are also coupled with such ease that there is little to no effort required of the user. (More on this in the next sub heading.). The advertiser has made sure this is done by “doing it correctly” and and according to instructions.
No Work
Most people want things to be easy and simple, and will settle for having things done for them. This is human nature,
Entire franchises have been founded upon this tenet. Some of these are known as a Silver Bullet and The Big Red Easy Button. Very often a simple three-step process is presented. This lures people in because it’s easy and effortless.
Advertisers know this and it’s used everywhere in campaigns. It is a form of assurance about a product or service and when used in fraudulent advertising, it leaves the user bewildered, frustrated and downright angry.
This sales video is riddled with this prmise.
Testimonials
When we research products and services that we find, we like to see how others have experienced them. We believe in them because they’re supposed to represent customers’ use of the product and what they think of it. It helps us with our buying decisions.
What if the tings that are said in the testimonials are not true? They misrepresent the product or even worse, they’re from folks who have never used the product!
This is exactly what happens here in the testimonials found in the advert. I have found two out of the five folks on there giving false testimonies. This leads me to believe the tall of them ar bogus.
They’re actors from the well-known Fiverr.com, where folks hire themselves out to be spokespersons gigs for all kinds of applications.
This includes real-looking testimonials for folks who need them for their advertising. Fraudulent marketing includes the use of actors who pose as folks who have been exposed to the product or service! They’re lies! Check below!
Scarcity
If you’ve got an inferior product, or something that is complete junk, there’s two things you can do in your advertising to get out there and make boatloads of money, though this is as unethical as it gets…
Already using the appeal to emotion, unscrupulous marketers resort to having as little to say about the product as they can (called selling the sizzle without the steak) and then creating a sense of urgency in the consumer. There are a number of ways this is done…
- Sales
- Time limits
- Expiry
- Shortness in supply
- Limited seating/slots
- …and others…
In the rags-to-riches story in this advert, there’s an apparent reason why the product is in short demand. Other apparently controlling entities have found out about this product and they have been angered by it, as if these folks could shut the system down, therefore, only a very few will be allowed in. Several times, the viewer is told to move quickly because the video might be taken down at any time. Scarcity is outright used to invoke fear and urgency into folks who think they are looking at the deal of a lifetime and this breaks down the consumer’s ability to think rationally about the transaction before purchasing.
Rags-to-riches stories found in videos like this is extremely common in fraudulent advertising. They’re there for good reason – they seduce rationality and invoke emotionalism The story is a pack of lies as I will show you below…
Assurance
Assurance is another tool used by marketers, and though there are times when such tools are needed. However, assurance is also used as a ploy to amplify trust and diminish skepticism.
There’s two ways assurance is used in this advertisement, and is often used by fraudulent marketers in attempts to mask true intent:
The so-called narrator, Steven Cook takes a stand against the Internet marketing gurus and big-shots who show little remorse for the fraudulent crimes they commit. He’s taking a stand against this and is downright angry about it. This leads to the next way…
He’s right there for the small-time entrepreneurs out there trying to make their businesses go and his conscience can’t let him sleep nights. This drives Mr. Cook to play out some altruism upon the “lucky” few whom he can take in under his wing.
These, and other forms of assurance are commonly used in false advertising of this type.
Finally! Some Clues as to What This Product Is!
Intermingled with the It’s all done and set up for you spiel, Mr. Cook begins talking about online business sales and how they have overtaken conventional brick-and-mortar counterpart. He brings up some statistics. I have not checked these. They may be true and they may be some more false information.
We also find, in one of the images shown of three statements, that the headers are Amazon’s. Very likely the product is some sort of hack that helps boost sales in Amazon. Cook asks how inventory can be managed, what to sell, etc. Evidently this is what’s involved.
Is all this leading up to a product that is actually capable of making the fantastic earnings claims that are riddled throughout the sales video? Let’s look at the next item…
The Down-Sell Sequence
This is where advertisers build perceived value. This is done as a sort of shock to get folks to believe something is more valuable than it really is. By now, this sales video has a lot of people hooked. With what’s been discussed so far about AZ Formula’s advertising campaign, there is little to wonder why this would be so.
The above are powerful tools and fraudulent marketers cram adverts like this full of fallacy and junk.
If you were to literally remove the coercive persuasion, including the appeal to emotion, the rags-to-riches story, bogus testimonials, flaunting of wealth, and the lies, you would have less than a minute of stuff that even remotely has value to it.
Often used, and should raise a red flag, is the stepping down process just before the final call to action I call, the Down-Sell Sequence. This a version of the late-night infomercials, the “But Wait! order now and we will send you two pieces of this junk!” that puts a calming effect on prospective buyers.
Here, the price gets dropped from the ridiculously-high amount to the deal of the century – the famous $47!
Call to Action
In the AZ Formula case here, we have the typical call to action with embedded reminders of everything discussed in the video, telling the consumer what to do next.
A Call to Action within the body of the ad can also be there to get the viewer to do something that will likely get increase the likelihood that the person sways toward the closing of the sale. This tactic is used by nearly all experienced advertisers.
I have not gone any further with this. This advert says enough about what to expect. the lies alone found inside makes me write a great-big red SCAM across the product, even though it may work.
Now for the Frosting on the Cake…
This is very short and sweet. Remember the 10 lucky individuals who are being admitted to this highly-exclusive program? Let’s take a look at one more item here and let you decide whether or not you should let Mr. Cook get your emotions spun up or take a look at this one more fact and let your intellect guide you the right way here…
A picture is worth a thousand words, and I have already written more text here that might make some folks weary. If only 10 souls are being admitted, than why is the following?
What you are looking at, are some of the joint-venture stats for this product. These stats contain several pages of data and graphs that tell the affiliate marker how the campaign is performing. Shown here is the header of the data belonging to AZ Formula. The line of text tells the most basic details about this product. Please consider the following…
First of all, there are marketplaces where affiliate marketers (folks who promote products and services on the Internet for businesses.) and vendors (the businesses that offer affiliate programs for the affiliates) meet up and do business with each other. The marketplaces are called affiliate networks and serve as a brokerage for the two groups.
Clickbank is one of these and AZ Formula is being hosted there as of this writing. The product has just launched within the last day or two.
What makes the advertising we have looked at so misleading beyond anything else is the fact that there are thousands (very possibly tens of thousands) of affiliate marketers promoting this product. There are millions of emails going out to inboxes across the globe.
Ten Lucky Ones? Who in the heck could those be?
We do get another vital piece of information about this product – It contains up-sells. In other words, you will pay the $
My Recommend…
I can show you a program that I recommend, not only because I have been a member of its business platform now for almost nine years and that it has a proud community of almost 1.3 million members strong, but because its basis is in paying it forward, which is taught in its courses and training modules.
If you are looking for an honest and true place to learn how to build a business suited to your passions and interests, you’ve come to the right place. Wealthy Affiliate has long been known for its quality and high-ticket signature training, tools and support you get at far less cost than you get with products such as the one above. I will compare AZ Wealthy Affiliate with AZ Formula so you see first-hand what you get in each. AZ Formula and others like it claim close-knit support systems that don’t exist. Their “systems” often turn out to be a cheap pdf file or two, or some other low-quality product, and take you by the hand and do that work for you? Forget it!
Not so at Wealthy Affiliate. Here you will learn the ropes of affiliate marketing and what you see IS WHAT YOU GET. Since 2005, Wealthy Affiliate has had no rivals. Take a look at the chart below. At the bottom of the chart is a button that will take you to my Wealthy Affiliate Review. Wealthy Affiliate allows you to come inside and experience it for yourself. No stone is left upturned and you will know first-hand what you’re getting. There are no obligations here. See it for yourself. Give it a try – it’s on the house! There is no cost to try it. I guarantee you’ve seen nothing quite like Wealthy Affiliate, and I am proud to say this.
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