Foreword: Sometime over the last 24 hours Polaris have pulled the site. As a result some of the links contained in this article no longer work. I’ve included an index at the end of the article of Google’s cache of the various pages I’ve referenced. /end foreword

polaris-media-group-reloadedLate last year Liberty League International changed over it’s name to Polaris Media Group. Not without controversy and suspicion, the name change occurred just days after the NSW Department of Fair Trading publicly stated that after investigating Liberty League International, they’d found the company fit the definition of a pyramid scheme.

In an effort to reassure everyone that the DoFT findings had nothing to do with the name change, Shane Krider (CEO) and his Executive Marketing Council (EMC) attempted to reassure everyone that the name change ‘new company’ had been 18 months in the making.

Upon closer inspection however certain facts didn’t support this idea. For starters the company name change was only put through a week before the NSW DoFT announcement. Secondly half the new products weren’t even ready for release yet.

Then there was the back office problems, mass resignations of EMC members, links to Scientology, confidentiality agreements and seemingly dwindling conference attendance numbers. The creation of Polaris Media Group on the eve of Liberty League being declared a pyramid scheme by an Australian regulator certainly didn’t feel like 18 months of planning.

Whilst most of the existing distributors who have stayed with Polaris Media Group are away at Polaris’ first 5 day ‘Influence Live’ conference in Macau, a new website has been quietly launched.

Polaris Global Marketing was registered as a domain on 10th February 2010 but has only gone live sometime in the last 24 hours. It was registered with domain company ‘Domains by Proxy’, the same company used to register Polaris Media Group’s website.

The company name Polaris Global Marketing was registered in the US just under two weeks ago on 3rd March 2010. The application was sent in on the 24th February 2010. This indicates that, re-branding attempt or not, the decision to launch Polaris Global Marketing has only come about recently.

The website itself is clearly not ready for public consumption. On the ‘Meet the Founders’ page the words ‘Shane’s Bio’ appear instead of an actual biography for CEO Shane Krider.

Additionally several obvious spelling and grammar mistakes are present. For example the ‘Financial Opportunities’ page states that:

What Make the PGM opportunity truly unique is that it allows a distributor to earn a very substantial income based soley on the eff (sic)

PGM, Could distribute its products in many different ways… Infomercials, direct mail, Seminares,… We beieve that making money is not the most ipmortant thing in a persons life, but it seems to be about as important as oxygen.

I don’t know about you but I rank oxygen pretty high up there on ‘things that are important in life’. Breathing is a bit more important then making money.

No mention of Polaris Media Group is made on the Polaris Global Marketing site. There are however several links to Polaris Media Group sites/accounts.

For instance the global ‘blog’ link at the bottom of the site’s pages still links to the official Polaris Media Group blog on the polarismediagroup.com domain. Note that this blog hasn’t been updated for nearly two months now. ‘Polaris Media Group’ is also mentioned in some of the product testimonials featured on the site.

Additionally the YouTube, Twitter and Flickr buttons at the bottom, as well as the ‘In the News’ global link at the top of all pages all link to Polaris Media Group media. The Facebook button interestingly just links to the Facebook homepage, rather then the Polaris Media Group Facebook page.

I’m tempted to say that the site going live now whilst the Macau Influence Live conference is on is no co-incidence. Either the company wanted to beta test it’s site while it’s distributors are busy, or they are getting it ready to demo at the conference itself (and make an announcement about it).

As of yet as far as I know there has been no official word from management at Polaris Media Group regarding Polaris Global Marketing. I initially thought it might have been a promotional site for the recently launched Polaris Media Group in-house lead management system, which went live last Monday.

It seems however that the site is being built as a standalone company website complete with a new logo. Any references that might have previously used the term Polaris Media Group, such as the big ‘become a Polaris Media Group distributor’ on the domain homepage have been simply renamed ‘become a Polaris distributor’.

The ‘giving back’ section of the website mentions another company, Polaris Global Media and lists it as ‘part of the Polaris family of businesses’. Presumably Polaris Global Marketing is also part of the Polaris family of businesses but then this raises the question of what happens to Polaris Media Group?

‘Polaris Global Marketing’. A new business opportunity or yet another attempt at re-branding?

You decide.

 

Update: 17th March, 2010: Sometime in the last 24 hours the site has been pulled and now redirects to a ‘coming soon’ page. No official announcement has been made yet.

Here is an index of Google’s cache for the pages I’ve linked to in the article:

1. Polaris Global Marketing homepage

2. Meet the Founders page

3. Financial Opportunities page

4. Giving back page