Salsa Marketing 101 - What not to do

LearnSalsa is at it again! LearnSalsa is a Los Angeles based salsa business that uses 'sex sells' tactics for marketing salsa to the general public. I blogged about this group before and I agree that sex sells but these tactics will not attract serious dancers and would only be a shallow pickup joint (I can go the the local bar for that). While salsa is great for meeting new people and possibility of hooking up with someone happens all the time I would not recommend that you advertise your business like a 900 number date line. Take a look at their video ad.

Is this video a joke? No it is actually a real ad!

To be fair I am not going to judge the women's acting or looks and just focus on the delivery methods used in LearnSalsa. I like how the women mention that you will meet 50 hot guys when you come to their salsa bootcamp. What is define as hot? A six foot man with a body of a geek god or someone who looks like Steve Urkel from Family Matters? Sounds like deceptive marketing at work (same goes for the sexy women pitch). The ladies also mention losing 1500 calories and they show off their bodies as proof (rolling my eyes). While salsa does burn calories and fat, I would never tell my students that you will lose 1500 calories. Losing weight depends on how many classes you take and how hard you work at it. We also notice that calorie burn is at it greatest when you get to an intermediate/advance level where you can dance to faster songs and execute more complicate patterns.

Ok, I am done with my rant. Here is a treat (for the guys) , another LearnSalsa video ad of a woman in a two piece bathing suit. The poster titled this video Huge Breasts Awesome Breasts from sexy girl. I guessed that they wanted to attract educated and intelligent viewers to their ads (insert extreme sarcasm here).

Enjoy (no nudity, but not recommend for viewing in a work setting)