Cobra Group (marketing)

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Cobra Group is a registered company specialising in door-to-door sales, originated in Australia and New Zealand. It has since expanded to several other countries, with several offices under it using different names, including Malaysia, Singapore, and even countries in Europe. The culture and hierachy of Cobra Group has a close resemblance to it's US affiliate, DSMax.

The Cobra Group has hit the tabloids on a number of occasions and has gained the reputation of a ruthless pyramid organisation that gives next to no rights to the "self-employed" field representatives.

Like DSMax, Cobra Group has been under heavy criticism, with several complaints appearing on www.ripoffreport.com, a site in which companies with bad practices are mentioned. Further complaints can also be found in several online forums. The reasons for its unpopularity usually come under one of the following:

1) Cobra Group, like DSMax, is essentially a door-to-door sales company. But its advertisements do not mention this fact, possibly because it does not want to scare potential employees away. Instead, it advertises itself usually as offering "management" jobs, with words that range from "entry-level management" to "rapid advance opportunities in management". This is viewed as highly deceptive by many. Advertisements usually also claim to have training sessions by trainers, but according to www.ripoffreport.com, the so-called training sessions are simply following a senior employee around a certain district selling products. Occasionally, they will state the salary in the advertisement, which is highly fallacious as well because the salesmen are allegedly not paid any base pay; the salary depends solely on their commission.

Harsher words to describe Cobra Group include calling it a pyramid scheme of management which has led to the success of the company.

[1] An example of an advertisement posted.

2) Online posters usually criticise the work conditions of the company. According to many, a typical work day usually begins at 0730 in the morning which involves packing of goods to be sold and morning meetings, followed by 8 hours of walking in an allocated district, trying to sell various products. Upon returning to the office, there is a debrief session and eventually this may add up to even 12 working hours a day or more and the employee can only return home late at night.

3) Many online posters also claim that the promises made in Cobra Group, such as fast promotion to real management level, which involves setting up ones own office and specialising in products, are hard to fulfil because many of such offices fail to generate income and as such leaves many employees depleted of financial resources. The senior managers of the company allegedly attribute this to "bad attitudes" harboured by the employees which result in their failure, and that all employees leaving the company do not adopt a positive attitude to work. It is rumoured that the monthly staff turnover rate of the company is as high as 95%.

4) Some posters also mention that the quality of the goods sold by the company is very low, and various questionable practices such as sneaking into a commercial building or shopping centre while the security guard is not looking, or telling every customer that the discount only applies to them since there is only one product left, are ultimately undesirable.

Examples of such forums: [2][3][4]

DS-Max also comes under similar criticisms.

See the article of DS-Max for more details.

Adapted from a previous edition of this article:

" Workers in the Cobra group are held in by mind meddling games, the prospect of big money, the prospect of promotion and living the high life. It is claimed that the cobra group will expand by 25% nearly every year, however fails to expand successfully anymore in Australia. The average age for "owners" or franchisee's is claimed at 23, however this is only the case because an average owner goes broke or quits after 2 or 3 years.

The job itself, door-to-door marketing or event marketing in shopping centres, is so demanding, most workers do 60-70 hrs a week. They need big lures to stay. Workers are told about prospects of promotion, success stories and are constantly fed "this is the only way to become rich". This inturn keeps the average worker for about a month on an average wage of $400 for 60-90 hrs work.

All workers are forced to get an ABN and become an independant contractor. However they are essentially employees, have set hours, are not entitled to sick leave and are basically exploited.

The pyramid management that keep workers for more than a day: At the top Comanies like austar, amex, energy australia sub contract to The Cobra Group sub contract to Regional Office (liquid market, empower united, redz , etc etc 100's of them)

Independant Contractor - ie. The "employees"

The people at the bottom, are offered the chance of getting their own company or "franchise" and becoming an owner if they train up enough people and recruit enough people to hit sales targets. However these targets are unrealistic, and it is often told that being an "owner" or "franchisee" is instant riches, the reality is most go broke.

The payment system For example, an IC signs up a customer for Austar. Austar pays The Cobra Group $300 (example figures not actual) The Cobra Group Pays the Regional Office $160 The Regional Office pays the independant contractor $70

There is no basic wage and is wholly commision based.

The majority of workers are school leavers and are usually exploited on massively low per hour rates and are unable to take the responsibilites of an ABN.

Very Few Pay Tax

It is the same basic company as DS-MAX www.ripoffreport.com/view.asp?id=24979

This company is useful for entry point marketing but not as a long term job as the employees are often exploited beyond brain washing.

Every Office follows the same basic recruitment process. Mass Advertise Positions. Target 18-23 age market teach the 5 steps talk of success stories go to motorvational speeches

Among the 100's of offices sub contracted from the Cobra Group. Few are run well but they're are the odd office that is brilliant to work for. The Cobra Group is based on sub-contracting and therefore the person at the top is untouchable and obtains proceeds from every sale from every one of the 15000 IC's. http://www.blackantmarketing.com.au/ - another cobra office "

The following text appears in the Cobra Group homepage:

"The Cobra Group is a global leader in face-to-face marketing. Its primary service is promoting and selling the products and services of their clients and customers.

The Cobra Group has offices in over 20 countries presenting over 1 million ‘Human Commercials™’ on behalf of their clients every day. The Cobra Group's system is unique, proven and unrivalled. Last year alone, they acquired more than 8 million new customers worldwide creating over $5 billion of new revenue for their clients. They have also educated over 60 million consumers globally using their Human Commercials™ on a range of products and services over the past 12 months.

Their client portfolio includes some of the biggest names in financial services, utilities, sports and entertainment, charities, fashion, sportswear and consumer products.

Our global network drives best practice Nothing is left to chance Our culture fosters superior thinking, work and communication We have developed regional centers of excellence Our success is measured by the results we generate for our clients Superior market cachet and reputation We have a common global infrastructure for client management, engagement management, database management, call centre management, training, billing and payables We offer proprietary marketing tools such as Human Commercials™ and Granton ValueCards™ to give you a real competitive advantage The Cobra Groups client's gain access to recognised industry experts who know how to sell to an increasingly diverse market - both in the UK and overseas We are the global leaders in face-to-face marketing

see http://www.savethechildren.net/australia/corporate/corporate_cobra.html http://www.savethechildren.net/australia/corporate/corporate_champions.html

Playfair Enterprises Pty Ltd is an affiliate of the The Cobra Group. It registered as a Proprietary Company on the 21 April 2005.

Its headquarters are situated in Bondi Junction, Sydney.

Currently it provides direct sales and marketing services on behalf of Energy Australia and AAPT.

On the week of the February Rally, the annual award ceremony held by the The Cobra Group, Playfair Enterprises was registered as the top office in the Energy division.

Red Planet is an affiliate of Cobra to find out more go to http://www.marketingjobslondon.co.uk/about.html

SRJ marketing is another Cobra company based in Bristol. Doing really well and setting an example for everyone. Sid Jain is the managing director of the company, to find out more or for a real business opportunity go to http://www.srjmarketing.co.uk/index.html"