ErinIs.com

I’ve gone on many a “I hate Facebook ad” tangents which often result in some post-tangent regret. After all FB is just trying to monetize; we can’t expect these awesome little companies to be poor because I don’t like their ads. And all the crappy/ugly/inefficient ads are little businesses trying to get “in” on social media and may not realize what they’re doing wrong. I’m no expert and maybe I’m the only one annoyed by Acai Berry Diet Plans and gross pictures of obese people or the endless stream of dating site ads just because my FB says I’m single. Hey, maybe I’m the only person not clicking on those.

So I feel bad and I think that maybe this little companies are just trying to make it and I should check them out….but then they remind me all over again why I have FB ads. Its not that I don’t like the idea that they’re easy enough anyone can do them. And hey Google annoys me with their “standards” and “regulations” because sometimes a text ad really does need two exclamation points!!

But just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should. The FB advertiser that sent me into this particular rage is MyInteriorDecorator. Their ad was pretty basic and one of the few actually got be to click (unfortunately I can’t get it to show up again). This is a screen shot of the landing page (check out the link if you can’t see much off this picture).

Did you instantly recoil from the huge font? Or was it that the generic header and the bright red font clash How about the incredible amount of text but OMG they can help me RIGHT NOW! Apparently there is such a thing as a design emergency.

This company asks you to pay $15-$125 for a complete stranger to tell you how to design your house, but they cannot even match a blog header with a font color.

I’m really trying hard to be a nicer person and less critical of others work, but you’re a design company! Please spend just a little bit of money with a freelancer to design your blog/landing page or just take 10 minutes and find a better header, turn off the caps lock, change the font back to a normal size and change the red font color.

Klondike has recently stepped up their advertising. They’ve sponsored Diggnation for the last few weeks and as an ice cream hater I actually find myself craving a Klondike when Kevin and Alex devour one.

But when I stumbled on the Klondike video game they totally lost me. The game blows. I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing, and it is ridiculously stereotypical. It features a nagging wife and a guy who just wants to chill in his man cave; she gets to put the kids to bed and he gets to play his electric guitar and watch TV. On top of all that, there is just way to much text to read. You click your mouse once and you get something like this which I refuse to read.

I tried to give them a second chance by the rest of the site is equally lame.

You can visit it here. Dude, you’re trying to hard.

Go straight to the man cave here.

Duuuuddddeeee.

I am not a violent person. However, I would like to physically harm who ever created the pop up people that talk on websites.

Dear Merchant Circle,

Please disable your the popup lady who tries to sell me on your package deals.

Thanks.

To experience the annoyingness for yourself – click here.

Meet Zack, the star of the most disturbing online campaign EVER created.

The premise is that Zack went to bed one night with “guy parts” and woke up with “girl parts,” although he remains a guy in every other aspect. Throughout the videos Zack only expresses mild confusion, never close to FREAKING out like most guys would be.

On his site, Zack16.com,  you can read his diary and watch the very professionally produced videos of this transformation.  Check out his diary entry from Day 9 where a copywriter had the time of his life crafting these beautiful and touching words -

It happened so fast. C’mon, I just was just dealing with my newly acquired girl parts. And I had no choice. They just showed up. I didn’t even get a 30-day money back guarantee. Then BAM! I get hit by the menstrual express. I didn’t even have time to give my new girl parts a pet name like “Fifi” or “Alexandra.” No, we had to rush right into menstruation.

In the Day 9 video you’ll see the Tampax vending machine – voila after 9 freaking days of girl parts, vagina, PMS and menstruation talk we finally get a product placement that lets up know who to thank for this this “viral” series.

So thank you, I am now scarred for life. Is this as contagious as swine flu? Can I wake up one morning with “guy parts” or is this a guy to girl only type of thing? Why doesn’t Zack seem more concerned? Is this some sort of super strength STD that I need to be on the look out for?  Or does this prove that you can “lose it” if you don’t “use it”? Why hell isn’t he freaking out?? If I think Zack is cute, am I a lesbian? Ugh, you may have made me feel better about “Menstruation Island” but now I’m questioning my sexuality. Gee thanks Tampax!

Didn’t viral used to mean it was low budget and at least attempted to look like it was consumer produced? I wonder what the bill was for this because I see a part two where Zack wakes up with robot parts! Or his Fifi meets another Fifi and we learn about transsexuals. Or we follow around a girl who wakes up with “guy parts” and dribbles out apologizes to for every stereotypical guy cliche and then shaves her new balls, sponsored by Gillette.

You can read more about it on AdAge or if you’re like me, you can curl up into a ball and cry over the state of advertising.

I am totally impressed with Bing, Microsoft’s attempt to get back into the search game, and its not just because of the plethora of results of my vanity search – I finally beat out the Erin Norton who makes jewelry.

Bing’s spin is that its a “Decision Engine” so they’ve organized and categorized the results to help you make decisions. I highly recommend testing out an image search (limitless scroll bar!), a restaurant search (check out the left hand options!) and a travel search (they graph out ticket prices!). For some more capabilities check out this video -

However, I’m really very disappointed by the display ads. These are just crap – so far I’ve only seen them on tech heavy/early adopter web sites – show me some flights to SFO, comparison shopping a new tech gadget an image search for some nerdy movie if you’re going with the early adopters.

Creepy guy in mirror,  woman giving me evil eye surrounded by photos and crappy stock “I can do it” photo = what is this ad for again? Erectile dysfunction? Anti-depressants? It’s so generic, no defined personality and totally lame.

I highly recommend reading more about this article from ReadWriteWeb – Search 2.0 vs. Traditional Search.

BooneOakley also launched a new site this week that’s causing some buzz as its completely in YouTube.

They utilize YouTube’s ability to have clickable portions within videos to create the buttons that take you to different “pages”. Very much like Modernista’s unwebsite (that Skittles later copied) and in keeping with their agency description “BooneOakley is a full-service, out of the box ad agency.”

Via TechCrunch comes possible the most awesome old school video. 

Oh the olden days before I was even born with their telepapers and rotary phones. 

A few weeks ago I discovered one of the videos R/GA created for their textual harrasment campaign and absolutely loved it. 

This week I discovered the campaigns website, ThatsNotCool and it is equally as entertaining and awesome.  I really hope the target demographic doesn’t find this site as hilarious and ineffective as I do becauuse youngins should really stop sending naked pictures of themselves. Not sure how they’re supporting this site and drive traffic, but I checked all the free web analytics sites I know and none of them even register thatsnotcool.com. Anyone out there know what other efforts are going into this campaign? 

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My very Southern Grandma Norton once wisely told me that “the only thing a girl can own is her reputation.” True, but hardly applicable to just women these days. Brands need to step up and listen own their online reputation becuase there will always be someone out there calling you a douchebag or a slut.   

81% of consumers read online reviews before purhcasing duringtheir holiday shopping according to MarketingCharts.com and Neilsen Online. While only a fraction of consumers will post reviews or submit complaints a whole lot more will read what those people are saying. If there are consistenly bad posts and no response from you, consumers will seriosuly consider buying from you.  

Do you know what your consumers are saying about you? Are you checking review sites such as Yelp.com as well as the niche review sites (like DealerRater.com for local dealerships)? Do you have a Google alert set to your brand or industry? Do you regularly check to see if Facebook/MySpace groups have formed for or against your brand? Do you monitor Twitter, Brightkite, Friendfeed and Blogs to listen to what your consumers are saying about you, your competitors and your industry?

While social media is fun, display ads easy and search is cheap, online reputation management is a bit more time consuming and harder to grasp. Unfortunately, that leaves a lot of brands unwilling to take the lead and spend their time seeking out reviews and taking control.  

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Chiquita Bananas has a new website up called EatChiquita.com. Actually it could be an old site, but I just saw the facebook ad for bananas and this websitesite. 

Its almost fun, but takes forever to load anddoesn’t make me want to eat a banana, Chiquita or not. 

You can make a video mashup and see people take hits from a banana bong…nope totally not making it up. Videos are pretty half assed attempt to make the site interactive with video. Check out my video here (I could only select and item and write in an adjective and verb).

UPDATE: This is the previosuly mentioned facebook ad.