Lifestyle Lift

I saw an advertisement in this month’s Martha Stewart’s magazine and then searched for other recent reviews on WordPress for this procedure. The claim to his is in “about one hour” a person “can look years younger.” According to their website, they have over 80 doctors working on this procedure across the US and have served over 100,000 people to date.
They also claim, “in order to offer the very best outcome, Lifestyle Lift® is committed to working only with the very best board-certified doctors, including those from renowned institutions such as Stanford, Harvard, Vanderbilt, Duke, Emory and Cornell.”
They do add this to add “credibility to their claims and procedure:”
The Lifestyle Lift Code of Internet Conduct and Assurance
Lifestyle Lift® pledges that all Internet communications accompanied by the trademarked Lifestyle Lift® logo are fair and accurately represent the latest in medical information about facial firming procedures. The comments and photographs are from actual patients and fairly represent the results and opinions of thousands of our patients. Lifestyle Lift® is proud to take a leadership role in establishing new standards of Internet conduct and communications. We promise that any Internet communication accompanied by our logo can be relied upon as true and accurate; and all communications originating from our practice will be clearly identified with the Lifestyle Lift® logo. If you have any questions or concerns about the authenticity of any internet content or postings, please contact Lifestyle Lift®.
I did find some reviews at http://www.realself.com/Lifestyle-lift/reviews. The final tally from this site was:
33% said it was worth it
67% said it wasn’t worth it (pretty bad actual reviews actually)
Average cost $5407
This positive review good but then when you keep reading near the bottom, it’s owned by Lifestyle Lift: http://www.mylifestylelift.com/lifestylelift.html
To top it off, this person blogged about how Lifestyle Lift was fined in NY for providing false reviews on realself.com <— note this is the same website I noted above!. http://www.localseoguide.com/fake-reviews-will-cost-you-real-just-ask-lifestyle-lift/
LifeStyle Lift – Fake Reviews Will Cost You Real $
July 15th, 2009
Just caught this article in the NYTimesabout how Attorney General Andrew Cuomo had fined Lifestyle Lift, a cosmetic surgery company, $300,000 for ordering its employees to write fake reviews of its face-lift procedure on sites like RealSelf.
Let’s put aside the ethics of faking reviews for a minute and reflect on how effective a strategy this was for Lifestyle Lift:
Pros:They probably didn’t factor this in, but because they got caught, their site is now generating a lot of links. Variations of “facelift” or “cosmetic surgery” are not hugely expensive to buy ($5-$10 CPC), but I guess if they could translate those links into some page one rankings it could easily be worth $300K.
Cons:Page one of Google for “lifestyle lift”is already littered with results about this story. My bet is unless they do some reputation management SEO these aren’t going away anytime soon. So even if they do rank on page one for some great terms, sooner or later a prospective patient is going to Google them, see this story and likely bail. Hmm, something like this could tank their whole business pretty quickly. Maybe it wasn’t worth the page one rankings?
It’s too bad Lifestyle Lift went down this route, but it’s understandable. There probably was a lot of negative word of mouth about them already in the cosmetic surgery communities. Here’s the first thing I saw after I clicked on the third SERP result for “lifestyle lift” – “Lifestyle lift for jowls, turkey neck – unsure if it was worth it”
While it’s hard to overcome a bad product or service, perhaps if they had consulted with a knowledgable SEO/Reputation Management pro at least they could have come up with an alternate strategy that would not have cost so much, or if it had, at least it would have had a better ROI. Some tips for Lifestyle Lift in the future:
1. SEO your site! At least update your title tags with some good keywords. Hell update your whole site. It’s a bit of a tired, hard-to-read thing as is. If you can’t control what people are saying about you online at least try to get some traffic for valuable keywords and bypass them.
2. Participate in social media without faking it. If Ms. Turkey Neck is not saying nice things address her concerns. Maybe you need to redo her turkey neck. I guarantee if you turn her turkey neck into a swan neck, she will be your loudest supporter in these communities. And what would that cost you? My guess is the margins on turkey necks, among other things, are pretty fat.
3. Work with a reputation management pro who can help you move a lot of those pesky little negative links off of page one.
4. Better yet, give your customers reasons to say nice things about you online.
Even if you don’t have a problem with the ethics of fake reviews, they do often violate the terms of service of the reviews website. And as Lifestyle Lift discovered, that little fact can cost you. So next time you are thinking it might be a good idea to post some fake reviews of your business on the Web, remember you might be blowing all the cash you saved up to fix your damn turkey neck.
I think I’ll pass on this procedure ….

CellCeuticals® Biomedical Skin Treatments

I woke up this morning after leaving the TV on to see another infomercial on another anti-aging product. I became one of those people who surfed the cable channel for any “paid programming” to see the latest and greatest product on anything. After trying a few anti-aging and a round of Billy Mays products (yes, I actually am admitting this), I quit spending money on these and am looking at more natural products or products with Vitamin C or retina in them. It’s a toss up with one product with the Vitamin C and olive oil. I thought olive oil would make my skin break out but I think I see an improvement and notice a more youthful look and it appears some wrinkles are smaller or it’s just nature diminishing my eyesight a little quicker.

With no surprise here, the anti-aging industy is the fastest growing industry. Plastic surgery is picking up speed and again, no surprise there. Some people can’t afford plastic surgery, some can’t tolerate the procedure or the pain and some just opt to utilize basic over the counter products for whatever reason. I must admit that I’d probably get some procedures done if I had the money to blow as I think after time, you spend just as much on some of these crazy lotions, creams and whatever else there is out there. I tried botox twice and it left a severe droop in my eyes as it was wearing off the second time. I looked at least 10 years older until it all wore out. I’m hesitant to use it again as I don’t think there are enough long term studies of the adverse events in spite of their claims this products has been used for years and years. Yes, the product has for other medicinal uses but not years and years on large population segments for the facial beauty.
I was curious if anyone has tried CellCeuticals® and actually liked the results. It was yet another infomercial of a panel of women who didn’t really need it or already looked like they had some plastic surgery discuss why they love this product.

I read a few articles all stating the same thing under “reviews of CellCeuticals®” and the claim to effectiveness was because some “celebrities” attended a launch party so that’s suppose to mean they actually use it AND they claim it works. I saw one person review their make up remover and admitted he/she has no bad wrinkles so can’t comment on that effect. On another site, ONE person provided reviews on their anti-aging products and gave them 9 out of 10. I think I’ll stick to olive oil for now.

From this website, http://www.dermproducts.com/news/cellceuticals-biomedical-skin-treatments-announces-a-new-approach-anti-aging, here is what the CEO stated:

With years of work in the beauty industry, I know first hand that savvy customers expect more than a ‘glorified miracle in a bottle’ and ‘empty promises,’” says Paul Scott Premo, CEO of CellCeuticals® Skin Care, Inc. “They’re frustrated with unrealistic claims. They want products that deliver their promised results. With this in mind, Dr. Fisher and I developed a new generation of bio-treatments that apply the latest advancements in cellular science, which help counteract the visible effects of skin aging.”

The Science: Proprietary & Patent Pending Technology: The CellCeuticals Growth Factor Peptide (GFP) Cellular Complex is a groundbreaking technology combining next generation lipopeptides, retinol and antioxidants in a proprietary nanoemulsion delivery system that targets cellular skin aging. The GFP Cellular Complex was designed to facilitate a “proliferation response” and eliminate the “inflammatory response” common with other anti-aging ingredients and procedures.

CellCeuticals’ patent-pending, bioengineered lipopeptides are developed and tested using state-of-the-art DNA Microarrays and represent the next generation of peptides. Many first-generation peptides not only increase expression of genes that code for elastin and collagen but also increase the expression of genes that code for Matrix Metalloproteinases (MMPs), enzymes that breakdown the extracellular matrix of the skin. In addition, some of these peptides increase expression of the interleukin genes involved in the inflammatory cascade.

The CellCeuticals patent pending lipopeptides are targeted to increase expression of certain genes (elastin, collagen) and to decrease others (MMPs and interleukins.) An additional, unexpected and surprising property of the lipopeptides is their broad-spectrum anti-microbial properties, making them ideal candidates for anti-acne products.
The GFP Cellular Complex triggers cellular stimulation to encourage the regeneration of vital proteins responsible for firmer, thicker and youthful looking skin.

Stephens & Associates conducted the extensive eight-week, independent clinical study under the direction of Chief Science Investigator Dr. Thomas Stephens. The results of the clinical study concluded the CellCeuticals® Skin Treatments System with GFP Cellular Complex was proven to:

• Diminish visible wrinkles by 36%
• Decrease the appearance of the deepest wrinkle depth by 45%
• Renew skin smoothness by 64%
• Refine skin texture by 31%
• Reveal skin radiance by 33%
• Revitalize skin tone by 24%
• Restore skin firmness by 20%
• Replenish skin moisture by 48%
• Reduce skin redness by 87%

In addition, the CellCeuticals® Skin Treatment System has been carefully formulated and undergone rigorous testing to substantiate both product performance and safety.

• Clinically & Efficacy Tested
• Dermatologist Tested
• Ophthalmologist Tested
• Irritancy Tested
• Fragrance-Free*
• Paraben-Free
• Phthalate-Free
• Non-Comedogenic
• No Sodium Lauryl Sulfate
• No Artificial Color
• No Animal Ingredients
• No Animal Testing