Apparently, all you have to do to make money online is invent a fake, but morally reprehensible, tragedy, put together a video about said tragedy, then sell t-shirts.
Oh, I almost forgot… then PROFIT.

The Save Our Cats and Kittens From Fishermen (SOCKFF) video has been making the rounds of the blogosphere for a while now, and still, not many people have called shenanigans on it. That amazes me. This video is obviously fake. It has zero evidence of it’s claim, it doesn’t show any cats being eaten by sharks, it doesn’t show any cats being pierced with hooks (although a gloved man pretends to), it doesn’t show anything really. It only shows black cats supposedly dangling from a hook, and a gloved man pretending to hook a kitten but blocking the camera’s view at the last second. Take a look at the cat dangling frame:

If that cat were actually dangling from a hook that had been pierced through it’s back skin, the skin would be stretched out far more than it is there. In fact, it looks like the cat’s actually hanging from some type of harness around it’s midsection. Take a good look. This video is fake, and it’s fairly obviously fake in my opinion.

The owner of the website, a guy by the name of Grady Warren apparently, is a genius. He posts a video that pulls at the sad strings of animal lovers everywhere, then he sells t-shirts. People think they’re helping out the kitties, but all he does (supposedly, he may not even do this) is donate a portion of the proceeds to either the lunatic PETA cult, the SPCA, the World Wildlife Fund, or the Humane Society. What percentage of the funds go to those charities? Who knows. It could be as little as 1 cent per thousand dollars. Warren does post this little disclaimer:
We are a for-profit Florida Corporation. We are promoting awareness of animal abuse and our donations to these four established charities will be used as the individual organizations choose.

The really interesting thing about this whole SOCKFF affair isn’t that it exists, since this scam has been around for a long time (it used to be dog’s as bait). The interesting thing is that so many people have been fooled by it. Face it, very bizarre shit happens in the world, and the internet has video of a lot of it, so it stands to reason that something like this could be true. That possibility is all he needs, the long tail of the internet does the rest. If only a small number of the people who see that video end up buying a t-shirt, he’s at least recouped the money he spent making the shirts. Genius business plan if you ask me. Well done, Grady Warren.

Is this the mysterious business genius, Grady Warren? The world may never know.

Brussels advertising agency So Nice sent out an email to its clients saying they need to shrink their staff, and asking the clients to choose which employee should go. The email had a link to youchoosewefire.be, where each of the prospective ex-employees lists their strengths and weaknesses.

The small 10 person agency has apparently been financially squeezed by it’s clients paying their bills later and later. Co-founder of the company, Laurent Duffaut, said the email was a “scandalous and provocative way to get a reaction from our clients”. But the email has generated a ton of interest outside of just its client base. In five days, the site has had 30,000 unique visitors casting 17,500 votes.

So with one simple email and website, they encouraged their existing clients to pay up, and spread their name around to new potential clients. Nice move. Unfortunately, it seems a little like holding a kitten hostage to me, appealing to your customers empathy…OR ELSE. It leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.

Adam Pacitti started the website TheGirlOfMyDreams after he supposedly had a dream of a girl of such amazing beauty, that he felt he had to find her in real life. So he drew her, and he posted the drawing online along with a video. Fortunately for us and everyone who loves hilarious things, Adam draws like a 5 year old. Yes, you saw it correctly in the video. Here is the girl of his dreams:

I’m still torn over whether Mr. Pacitti is a genius or slow-witted goon. If this is fake, he’s a genius, and he’s found a way to bring hundreds of thousands of people to his website and get exposure in the national media. But his website doesn’t have any ads, so it looks like he’s not making any money from whole thing. That means it may not be fake, and that’s a disturbing concept for me.

Here’s a line from his website:

I don’t think that I dream about people that don’t actually exist. Whether they are friends, family, or people that I’ve seen on television; everyone that has ever been in my dream I’ve seen somewhere. I genuinely believe that this person exists.

Really? Did you hear who else was in that dream? Zombies. Yes, it was a dream about zombies. Does he think zombies exist in real life, and that he just saw a few in his daily travels and worked them into his dream? My mind is boggled by his strange logic.

So, Adsavvy-ites, I leave it to you… what do you think about this one? Real or Fake?
Like I said, I’m still uncertain, so leave me your conclusion and your reasoning.

And meanwhile…
I’ve been inspired by Mr. Pacitti’s quest, and I’ve decided it’s time for me to try to settle down with my dream girl as well. Here is my dream drawing, as best as I can’t draw it. Bear in mind, I’m not an artist.

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL?

Also bear in mind, this picture doesn’t even begin to convey her fantastical beauty. She was perfect in every way, almost inhuman, unreal… dreamlike. But I’m sure she exists because why would I dream about someone who doesn’t exist, right? That’d be crazy.
But let me just clarify:
- She doesn’t actually have a lazy eye.
- She doesn’t have bald spots all over her head.
- She has a nicer smile.
- Her boobs are less like balloons and more like boobs, in fact they’re quite like Kate Nash’s boobs.

Other than that, the drawing is pretty accurate.

So did you ever think you’d see the day when a real robot was the primary character in a commercial? Kincho’s Preshower UV insect repellent/sunscreen spray commercial gets a thumbs up for novelty. But the real question is whether the novelty of having a robot actress outweighs the awkwardness of relating to an obviously inanimate object.

Sure, we are all accustomed to relating to cartoons, which are inanimate. But there’s something awkward about trying to relate to real robots that just aren’t quite human. Maybe the difference is that they are too close for us to suspend belief.

The funny thing about this commercial is that the female robot effectively says that she uses Preshower because, as a ‘female’, her skin is important. Now, that’s supposed to make all the women want this Preshower product… but doesn’t it really bring us to scoff at the notion that a robot has real skin. Doesn’t it cause us to lose trust in the product and the company. Or is it supposed to be funny, employing the humor hook.

Honestly, I don’t think the commercial works. Sure, it gets attention… but for all the wrong reasons. Yeah, it’s cool that a life-like robot is acting in a commercial for the first time. But the awkwardness of watching a female robot say her skin is important works against the empathy hook…at least that’s how I see it. Maybe the women disagree.

Source: Trendhunter

According to YouTube’s AdBlitz, The Tide Talking Stain commercial from Super Bowl 2008 was the number 1 commercial of the year. So let’s take a look at why it worked, and how it’s style can be duplicated as a general marketing principle.

There are several things that work about this commercial. First, and foremost, you’ll notice that the majority of the commercial sounds like an annoying foreign language. This grabs the viewer’s attention because immediately the viewer is aware that he is unable to make sense of the pseudo-language. Not only does it grab the viewer’s attention, but it forces him or her to focus even harder while trying to make sense of the gibberish.

But annoying often doesn’t work by itself. In fact, annoying can create negative associations with the product. So Tide needed to pull in a few additional strategies to make this commercial work. What did they do?

Well, two things. They brought in the humor hook part-way through the advertisement, introducing a surprise absurdity: a talking stain on the interviewee’s shirt. They simultaneously introduced the “I can relate” hook both in terms of awkward embarrassment for the interviewee and empathy for the interviewer (everyone’s been in a situation where their conversation partner has some embarrassing “look at me” issue).

The “I can relate” hook works wonder for reinforcing the viewer’s need for the product. No one wants to walk into an interview with a distracting stain on their shirt. What’s the solution? Tide To Go.

Brilliant Marketing.