Adland_ Searching for the Meaning of Life on a Branded Planet - James P. Othmer [63]
I’m actually kind of shocked when my Mozilla Firefox Web browser page opens and I don’t see any ads. There’s a nice clean page with a few instructions and the ubiquitous Google search box, which technically can be called an ad, but because of its utility in this instance, I won’t. A closer look will later reveal a line about telling all your friends about Firefox, but I didn’t notice it and don’t remember reading it anytime before, so it doesn’t count. Time to click through to Yahoo! to check my e-mail. On the Yahoo! landing page there are banners for Finding the Chrysler Dealer Near You (55), Unique Designs for Personal Checks (56), and Yahoo! music (57). To the left are smaller ads for Netflix (58), an online college diploma program (59), and a home-financing broker (60).
But the good news is my in-box has received twenty-two messages overnight! When I worked in advertising, I dreaded the quotidian misery of the onslaught of corporate e-mail, but now, sadly, I get excited when I see a number like 22 in my in-box. Maybe it’s film news from Hollywood! Perhaps I finally sold that short story! Maybe it’s a new fan! An old friend!
To a corporate executive the never-ending messages of the inbox can exact a painful psychological toll. But for a work-at-home suburban dad freshly pardoned from corporate life, it is a receptacle for possibility, a connection to the outside world left behind.
At least that’s how it feels before you start clicking through. One glimpse at the message roster and I feel embarrassed for the part of me that thought I actually had any legitimate messages at all. The relatively civil ones this morning include the Public Theater, mediabistro.com, Quality Paperback Book Club, Sierra Trading Post (twice), Netflix, Buy.com, Papyrus, Marriott, Toys “R” Us, and Telecharge, bringing the total to 71. Annoying, yes, but this is not the worst form of spam, and in truth I am probably responsible for most of it, having done online business with these companies at one time or another and agreeing (or neglecting to say no) to their offer to continue the relationship. Wired magazine (via the folks at PodCamp Pittsburgh) has a definition for this form of semi-solicited spam:
Bacn n. Spam by request. Bacn (pronounced “bacon”) is a byproduct of legitimate email lists and feeds—bulk messages for which the recipient has signed up yet never has time to read.
A Wired reader added this to the definition: when you’re distantly connected to a friend on a social network via obscure references, it’s called Six Degrees of Kevn Bacn.
Things become a lot less civil when I click over to my Jamespothmer.com mailbox, and it has nothing to do with bacn. Sixteen messages! However, only two are personal. I’d like to categorize the rest as ads, but messages with subject headings like these give even the lowliest coupon ad a bad name:
Bigger Penis Is Not Just an Illusion
You Won’t Believe Your Eyes When You See Your New Penis
For the most part, I don’t have a major issue with the intrusive nature of advertising in any form. Of course in my lifetime there have been ads that have irritated me, or offended me, or have appeared in what I considered inappropriate places at inopportune times (see my thoughts on pharma ads later in this section). But spam is another beast entirely. There is nothing to like about spam. Despite filters and blockers, despite my flagging it, deleting it, and chopping it up into a million bytes, spam always seems to come back in some reconstituted, increasingly offensive form. Like the Blob. Or Geraldo.
Seven New Messages from Ladies Waiting for You!
Radio, TV, and print ads are easy to police. If you’ve had enough, you can shut them off, turn down the volume, fast-forward, zap, look the other way. And if they really offend,