Ah, marketing bloggers

[chronarchy]

Looks like my mention of the Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant in Columbus, OH, caught the eye of someone in CiP Corporate.

Read their comment in response to my post.I'm somewhat amused. . . the "libations" have improved, apparently, but no mention of the central issue I had, the cheeseburger, is made

Comments

[rfunk]

In the last year or two that I worked at the ad agency, there was an increasing amount of attention being paid to "how can we use social media for our clients". And yes, it was primarily driven by those fresh out of college. As someone who started using the net when commercial use was severely restricted, and has used social media for along time, I was pretty uncomfortable with it. (Of course, I totally accept the billboard advertising they also do, while someone of an earlier generation would've been horrified at that when they were new.)

Facebook and MySpace, of course, are explicitly driven by advertising; participating in their business plan bothers me less than co-opting the user side of things, pretending to be "just an everyday user" when you're really a PR shill.

And now we have Twitter which I think just went mainstream in the last few weeks. There's a democratization -- everyone is "just an everyday user" -- but you have companies trolling for keywords and spamming with replies or follows. (I mentioned drivers following too close and got a Volvo ad for some feature in their cars, plus a follow; I mentioned going to Raleigh and got followed by some "NC regional buzz" account.)

And don't get me started on the evils of "email marketing"....

[singingwren]

Ahhh I love and hate email marketing.

I hate it because it is evil, and yet I love it because as a consumer it's great to receive coupons and updates from businesses I care about. I definitely read most of the e-mails I signed up for. And while there are others I don't often read, I think that companies like Starbucks and BE really have their e-mails down. Few, infrequent, to the point, relevant, attractive, and often laced with coupons.. perfect.

What I (and everyone) HATES are involunary e-mail messages. SO EVIL!!

You got me started..... ;-)

[rfunk]

Well, I'm not into coupons (generally more trouble than they're worth, and mostly used just to get people to buy or to find out their media source), but certainly I subscribe to some emails if they give useful information. And of course my definition of "useful" often differs from the sender's. :-)

Also my definition of "attractive" in email usually differs from, well, most people. That's because I view email as plain text rather than as HTML (it's too easy to hide nasty things in HTML), and when I do view as HTML I don't load remote images since that tells the sender that I read it (as well as allowing more nasty things). So for me an "attractive" email looks reasonable and informative within 80-column plain text.

At least I've managed to cut the spam in my inbox to less than one per day.

Yes, there are certainly legitimate uses for mass-mailing. And the two companies I've worked with who do it as their primary business seem to encourage good non-spammy practices (which is why I was willing to work with them).

But in a marketing context (or at least an ad agency context) there's just too much pressure for things like "I want to email every Kent State student about this cardboard shelf unit my client sells." (Yes, a real request.) Or more commonly, we'd be handed a list of email addresses and asked to send an email flyer to all of them, when even our client wasn't sure what those people had thought they were signing up for when they gave their address.

[chronarchy]

Billboards *do* catch attention, though: I know that I look at them and take note of things that interest (or occasionally offend) me. I'm virtually immune to online ads, though: they don't catch my eye or cause me to remember what their product is.

Take MySpace as a prime example. I know MySpace is covered in ads, and I know that they all have young girls pretending to look at webcams and flirt with me. I also know that these adverts are targeted to my profile. I could not, though, tell you what company/site they were for, nor have I ever clicked on one to get "more information". FaceBook is the same way. My profile page is covered in ads, but I don't really know who they're for.

Also, looks like Casey is on Twitter, too: it's clear he's doing a lot of footwork for this, and I have to admit I've got some respect for persistence.

At least he didn't find my Twitter account to "follow" me. . .whatever that means.

[singingwren]

Lol I notice the ads on my MySpace. Some of those dudes are hot.

And that's why I use it, anyway, to meet cute guys and flirt via my webcame with them.

[chronarchy]

Clearly. That's why we all use it, isn't it?

[rfunk]

I have mixed feelings about the targeted ads on sites like Facebook and MySpace. On the one hand it's a little disturbing that the advertisers know so much about me, but on the other hand that makes the ads a little less likely to be obnoxious. (Only if the advertisers pay attention to a significant number of attributes though, rather than just "male 35-40".)

Of course, quite often I use the adblock features of my web browsers and don't notice the ads at all. ;-)

I took a quick look at Casey's twitterfeed, and that looks like someone I'd block preemptively just because all his posts are basically the same @replies.

("following" on twitter is like "friending" on LJ, maybe with less expectation of following-back, and no extra privileges.)

[chronarchy]

I'm learning so much from this post ;)

I suspect that's what it means when it says people are "following" me, eh? Funky, that.