Advertising Age in Social Media

I've been having some crazy thoughts related to blogs lately.

Number one, no one reads my blogs. If I were to take a survey with myself and examine everything that irritates me in life, it would be the fact that no one reads my blog! That is a lie, but it sounds funny - and I know over the past few years many people have been frustrated and gone crazy over this subject.

The funny thing is that I know exactly what I can do to get some readers - because corporate America is listening. Call me a black helicopter person if you must, but it is true. I can say:

1. I love TILLAMOOK Cheese!
2. GENERAL MOTORS makes fine automobiles!
3. TOYOTA ... now those are some fine hybrids!
4. DANNON YOGURT ... I love you!
5. WALMART ... still not your local food co-op
6. RITE-AID ... hopefully people are saying nice things about you (jk)
7. BUDWEISER ... not American any longer
8. COORS LIGHT ... tap the ****tiest beer on earth
9. PABST ... still wondering how they became popular again
10. JOHNSON & JOHNSON ... when are you going to come up with a drug to heal my *******

But seriously folks ... social media (including blogging) is in the sites of all the greedy business people that we took to the internet to escape. Remember how annoying and useless pop up ads were in their hey-day? It was enough to make you hate whoever was doing that to you. Starbucks has recently been employing pop ups on my computer and it's bugging the crap out of me.

Banner Ads

Big corporations also came up with banner ads which were slightly less annoying but for all intents and purposes - useless!!! They probably assumed they needed a 2% return on investment to make the ads worthwhile ... but what is the sense in pissing everyone off along the way?

Myspace

Now I can't log into myspace without some huge Hollywood funded flash-ad that takes extra time to load and I don't care about anyways.

Tools

As my dad always says, when your only tool is a hammer all your problems look like nails.

Advertising agencies' only tools appear to be hammers (and the people that work there).

I just don't think they get it yet. I recently checked out the Oscar Meyer Weiner fan club and it was just the most dreadful site I had ever seen. It shows they are still treating people like they are not people but mere consumer-cattle to be branded and herded.

Businesses are considering social media to be the next big thing as far as advertising is concerned and so far most of their efforts have been for not.
Corporate America just seems to throw money at the problem as if money were water on a fire. It's like corporate America is some schizophrenic that thinks money will solve everything. Just throw money at it!

Tour de Fat

That is why I like small companies and businesses. I love the New Belgium Brewery for their advertising campaigns including Tour de Fat. I just don't want us to lose that organic edge as we find our lives revolving more and more around technology. That is also why I love social media. It's bringing advertising and marketing back to the people ... it's taking the tour de fat example and applying it in a like manner on the internet. It's rad. I'd really like to find some way to combine my interest in technology with town life ... community and social marketing.

Back to traditional advertisers!

There is a new web site called second life ... it's where all the deusche bags you meet from your daily life go to create a new life where they don't suck so bad. I have heard, and I can't confirm, that people's characters in second life can actually make money and then exchange it for real dollars. Talk about a great scam that I wish I had thought of! You create a virtual world full of fantasy's to make nerds feel like they are cool ... charge advertisers to put up billboards in that virtual world ... let Johnny idiot who is an out of touch business executive create a character ... and then trade him real dollars to make his billionaire computer character successful! Why didn't I think of this?

The other crazy thing about second life is what I briefly mentioned. Advertisers are paying to put up BILLBOARDS in the game! Isn't that nutsy? I mean it works for video games but to me this seems a little strange and a waste of money. How effective are billboards in real life? How successful are they going to be in Second Life?

Aye Aye Aye