But when you hear about former attorney general Elliot Spitzer’s high priced hooker, then you will probably have memories of hearing about the story. When it is said that no advertising is bad advertising, she would seem like the ultimate test wouldn’t she? She was a prostitute, sleeping with a married, high profile man. As far as getting a good reputation, we could say she had a disastrous start right?

But turns out, she is now doing better than ever. She has her own website, is launching her first record, is being invited to celebrity events, is being lured to write an autobiography, etc. I find it very interesting to see how well she is doing and to me, this is one of those ultimate examples that one of the only things worth doing for a corporation on the internet is to get attention. She has had some success with her song releases so far, giving interviews to the NY Post and would be sure to sell millions if she ever does write that book.

We had discussed Puma’s new stock index and if it would really pay off. I do see links between the two stories. One sure thing is that Puma cares more about getting attention for now than about actually selling clothes and that is probably a clever strategy. Will Nike and Adidas one day be playing catch up on the web or regret not being aggressive or edgy enough?

In my opinion, too many corporations worry about the impact of different possibilities on the internet when in fact, it is important to live on the edge, in order to even have a shot of being talked about, gaining attention and hopefully going viral. In a past column, I had discussed how I believed Pepsi was using the web much more efficiently than Coca-Cola and I believe it can have an important impact. Companies like GoDaddy are able to generate a lot of buzz and get their name out there while others spend many times more on marketing without much results…

It would have been incredibly brilliant if it had launched a year earlier but is still a good enough idea to generate buzz and excitement. This is a perfect example of an attempt at viral marketing. The objective of course is to get people to talk about the video as well as the idea. Then, of course, viewers will either send links to the video by email, Twitter, Facebook or even discuss it on blogs such as this one. It is an innovative way to get more eyeballs on its website.

I would say that this video has a good shot at becomming a hit and with close to 200,000 views on Youtube alone, without even having launched the product officially, chances are good that this will be a multi-million visitor idea, and probably considered a success. The advantage of course is that the costs are so slim to generate such a video.

Now the big question of course is if the they will be able to make a decent return on their investment. Chances are they will. Right now, they are collecting emails on their website as well as getting their name out there which as you will see on my post Wednesday, is always good. The saying that there is no “bad promotion” is certainly as true as ever in this internet era.

What are your thoughts on the Puma Index?

We had an interesting week in the markets with lots of action but most markets ending up down for the week and some already talking about a new crash? I’m not a big fan of the theory, but it should make next week very interesting!! Here are a few of the more interesting reads from last week in the blogosphere:

-TFB discusses the top Canadian dividend stocks as well as positions 11 through 20!
-Zach discusses credit card defaults rising and rising!
-A good post on GLBL about getting personal finances back under control
-MDJ: What is important about having m0ney for you?
-I did talk about fixed income ETF’s look at a trade on one of them here
-How emotions affect fixed income investors by Canadian Capitalist
-A great article by FP..how to find and select a tenant!
-Will interest rates stay low forever by TCT!
-Citigroup suing Morgan Stanley over Credit Default swap agreement..!

It is quite interesting to see funds flow in and out of ETF’s. However, it is often difficult to compare ETF’s as they often do not target exactly the same returns. But in some cases, several ETF’s track the same index but with very different charges. Why would you invest in a fund that charges over twice the fees if it targets (and pretty much meets) the same returns before fees. A very interesting case is taking place in the emerging market ETF’s.

One on hand, there is the very known EEM, managed by Ishares, that charges .72% of fees, which is high but seems reasonable considering it invests in many different illiquid markets. EEM has $31.7 Bn under management, a very impressive amount. But then consider Vanguard’s VWO fund which tracks the same index, the MSCI Emerging Markets Index. It charges .27% of fees, not even half of the fees charged by Ishares. Since it is not as known, VWO still has fewer assets under management, at $22.7 Bn.

The question of course is why someone would choose to invest in EEM when in fact you could pay fewer fees for the same return? One reason could be that you think one manager will not be able to achieve the promised return. In this case, both companies have a very solid reputation, both funds have a good history and you can look at this graph, there is in fact almost no difference between the return of the two funds.

You can take a look at the differences between the two here:

As you can see, they are pretty much identical so paying 0.45% more of fees does not sound like a good deal. There are rumours that Ishares will reduce the fees it charges later this year on EEM but for now, with as the largest emerging markets fund, it has little incentive to actually do so. If two funds offer the same return but one has a better reputation, strangely, many investors fly to that one.

Of course, I would not switch based simply on fees to a new and unproved company. But Vanguard is far from that and I will be the first one to buy VWO the next time I buy emerging markets ETF’s. I have stated numerous times that I am a fan of Ishares, but not fan enough to throw money out of my window… Of course, if you would like to do so, be my guest, I’ll be sitting outside to collect:)