Advertising

PETA delivers good news to Tiger Woods, bad news to Mark Sanford – but lets not forget Sasha Grey

February 28, 2010 by pfeifer

Tiger Woods PETA billboard - too much sex can be a bad thing

For those who feel that Tiger Woods and Mark Sanford have received too much media coverage lately, you’ll be pleased to know both can now be covered in the same news articles thanks to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

PETA is well known for it’s provocative ad campaigns, especially the ones featuring photos of naked women protesting the use of animal fur. They are also known for aggressive ads concerning animal rights, such as their 2001 “Murder King” campaign targeting restaurant chain Burger King, as well as less controversial issues such as spaying and neutering pets.

PETA was planning to launch a “spay and neuter” campaign which included a billboard near Tiger Woods’ home. The ad featured a photo of Tiger Woods with the caption “Too much sex can be a bad thing” in big letters, followed in smaller writing with “for little tigers too. Help keep your cats (and dogs) out of trouble. Always spay or neuter!”

Apparently Tiger Woods was not excited about this proposed use of his image, and after a meeting with Tiger Woods lawyers PETA decided to cancel the ad. After all, why go through a lawsuit when they can just leak an advance copy of the ad, let it spread all over the internet, get free publicity for announcing the ad campaign, and get more free publicity for dropping it?

While PETA let Tiger Woods off the hook, they did not drop the proposed ad campaign entirely. Instead of featuring photos of Tiger Woods, the ad campaign will now feature the image of another famous ladies man – South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. The new slogan will be “Your dog doesn’t have to go to South America to get laid.”

Despite the amusement factor of using Tiger Woods or Mark Samford, we still like the Sasha Grey version of the ad, featured below:

Sasha Grey nude photo for PETA ad

Facebook Gold is a scam – don’t fall for it, don’t click on it, don’t like it

February 17, 2010 by pfeifer

: Image via CrunchBase

Facebook Gold is a scam. Don’t fall for it, don’t click on it, don’t like it.

Many people are passing around an invitation to their Facebook friends to sign up for a group called Facebook Gold. Sometimes it is an offer for a free membership (while they last), other times it is just a suggestion that you join the group.

The idea is enticing. After all, who wants to be a regular Facebook member when you can be a Gold member? So why isn’t Facebook promoting it directly on the site? God knows they post enough advertisements on every page. But nothing about Facebook Gold?

A Google search produces numerous websites that say it is this great program that lets you upgrade your Facebook account, and it only costs $9.95 a year. Then other sites say it is a scam that harvests your private data. Some think it is a harmless prank. One of the links turns up a Facebook group link that no longer works. There’s a pretty big clue.

Then it occurred to me that Facebook has a Help Center. Why not just check the source? When I did, the search result was “I’ve got nothing for you. Your search term did not match any answers from Facebook.” There’s an even bigger clue.

You don’t have to be a researcher for Snopes.com to know that if Facebook doesn’t know what Facebook Gold is, it isn’t a legitimate program. Speaking of which, I checked Snopes.com but they don’t have anything on this scam yet. However, the best guess is that Facebook Gold is another incarnation of the 4Chan Gold Account scam.

Don’t fall for the trap. Stay away from Facebook Gold, unless you want to fall for a phishing scam and/or pay out money for nothing.

See also:

Facebook Gold Account Logo

Gold Membership Trolling

Ignore this post, we are just kicking the tires of the design

February 3, 2010 by pfeifer

: Image via Wikipedia

This is a test post to kick the tires of our new website, which is still under development. We are working on the design to implement graphics, video, images, and advertisements (we gotta pay for it somehow). Once it is completed, we hope to be informative, controversial, sometimes offensive, occasionally funny, and always correct. Look for our articles on news events, politics, legal developments, scandals, and anything else we think might draw you in as a reader.

Part of the test is to figure out ways to integrate various advertising tools into the system. We don’t want to overwhelm people with ads, since the primary goal of this site is just to provide some entertaining reading. However, we never object to picking up a little extra cash, so we want to integrate advertising into the articles in a way that is relevant without being a nuisance. Let us know how we are doing if you happen to visit the site while we are still figuring out these fancy tools.

Why, as a reader, do you even care? You don’t, unless we make the ads overwhelming and distracting. I’m just writing this because I need to create multiple paragraphs to experiment with ad placement and blog design. As your ex-girlfriend said when she dumped you, this isn’t about you.

If you’ve read this far, then you’ve really got too much time on your hands – making you our target audience. We hope that you’ll come again soon so we can show you what this site is all about. If you come back this weekend, we should have something fun and entertaining for you to read. See you soon!