What follows is another slice of the pie; not totally representative but
instructive nonetheless, like a soil sample from land near a chemical plant.
..
A woman I used to know (such a long, long story that) runs a pr0n site.
Like nearly all such sites it offers both still images and digital films of her doing pr0n sorts of things - sometimes alone, sometimes with 'friends' (many of whom, interestingly enough, are from Montreal, the home of whole lot more fun than most of us are apparently having).
Of course, like all pr0nsters in today's very competitive filmed bodily fluid exchange environment, she needed to find a way to get the word out to potential customers.
After a bit of dithering with Google ranking and sexy-clever business cards scattered to the wind (hoping the URL would spread like a virus from a pig processing center in Alabama) she hit upon the obvious method: Le Spam (or, as the Germans say, Der Spammel).
The method was simple: you, Internet user, would receive, whether you wanted to or not, an email -- embedded with a salacious jpeg or some questionable html coding -- promising a night of tissue filled enjoyment if only you rapidly directed your browser over to her site (hotter than a launch pad at site 43 in Plesetsk after a Soyuz 21-A lifts off - yes, that's very hot my friends).
She hooked up with a spamming firm located, er, someplace on this planet, to include her ad copy in their email mortar fire volleys.
Now, although I'm as open to getting annoying, unsolicited mail depicting women in stockings, heels and not much else doing Vishnu knows what as the next guy (along with the occasional email from, oh, I don't know, a friend or family member) I told her that I didn't see how this advertising program could possibly work because, well, it's just so damned evil.
She laughed like Shakespeare's Ophelia must have laughed before she jumped into that river (wait a minute, or was she pushed!). It was a sinister sort of sound and it made me wish I had a blaster to reach for - just for dramatic effect.
"No, no" she said, "you don't get it. For every thousand guys who say go to hell there are 10 or 100 who click the link, reach for the credit card and sign up. Those are the suckers I'm looking for."
This didn't bode well for our friendship which soon fell apart like a stripper on a bad, 'what the hell am I doing with my life!' day (which happens from time to time - or so I'm told).
It's the shotgun approach to marketing. And sadly, it works often enough to make it profitable.
.d.