Jake Ludens’ Mental Environment

It is no secret that I like to read and collect books, so when I see unique idea for a book it always grabs my attention. This is a book that I don’t think I will run out an pick up right away, but if anyone is looking for a gift for me, check out this book

Poop Culture: How America is Shaped by its Grossest National Product

Who knew or would have thought that you can write 232 pages about poop? This book comes from the great people who bring us The Poop Report

This morning there was an article I saw on FastCompany.com called The 10 Best Marketing Stunts Ever!

Here was their list and if the stunt resulted positively or negatively:
1. Aqua Teen Hunger Force - The Boston Bomb Scare - Negative
2. Nathan’s Doc-Approved Dogs - Positive
3. Last Days of Disco - Chicago White Sox “Disco Demolition Night” - Negative
4. Oprah’s Free Cars - Negative not for Oprah, for Pontiac
5. Taco’s New Bell - Fake purchase of The Liberty Bell - Positive
6. Steal This Identity - LifeLock - Negative (Lesson here, don’t challenge hackers.)
7. Guinness’s Bar Book - Positive
8. Snapple’s Giant Meltdown - Negative (honestly, I have never heard of this one.)
9. By Land, Sea and Air - British billionaire entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson - Positive
10. Name That Town - Hey for a 1950’s radio show this was ground breaking - Positive

So it is Friday and I am in a marketing and advertising critique mood, so here are my picks for my favorite and least favorite marketing stunts and advertising endeavors. (mine are in no particular order)

1. Kleenex Napkin commercial - “They don’t fall off your lap!” - I wrote a post about this commercial back in September.

2. Zoo York Roaches - Having been a skateboard kid growing up, this is one of my favorite Shock and Awe campaigns.

3. VW’s Tribute to Jerry Garcia Ad - I have the issue of Rolling Stone that has this ad in it. I think it is the definition of knowing your customers.

4. Budlight’s “Real Men of Genius” - Anyone who still enjoys or is forced to, listen to sports on AM radio is with me on this. Great way of using an inexpensive advertising medium.

5. Save By Zero! - I personally hate this commercial - Not only does it not make sense - this YouTuber says everything in his title for this clip, “Toyota Saved By Zero Loop From Hell Campaign” - Oh and don’t forget The FIXX sang that song.

6. Apple’s “1984″ - I am a huge Orwell Fan, and yes this commercial was genius, but anyone in advertising knows this. (awww remember books?)

7. Affiliate Marketing. - Hey some one buy this or buy this Please, Please, Please buy this.

8. Golden Palace.com - Jesus Toast, forehead ads, pregnant ads, oh and you can gamble there too. It was fun while it lasted.

9. Cap’n Crunch - I feel this was the beginning of the demise of literacy. Do kids even know how to spell Captain? When did MTV become a word? I would love to just LOL about all of this, but it really concerns me how the intelligence level is going down and the apathy level is going up in our society.

10. Viral Marketing - The reply all button started it all and now if you make a fool out of yourself or do something creative and it is digital, everyone knows about it.

I wanted to continue my thoughts on out-of-date affiliate marketing practices. Earlier tonight, I helped my Sister-In-Law set up a new Myspace profile for one of her friends. This got me thinking that I haven’t even looked at my Myspace page in months, so I went and signed in.

Myspace has had its ups and downs, but now with Facebook and other so called “professional” social networks, I really think that Myspace is a waste of time for most affiliate marketers. I think Myspace has its place for celebrities and musicians to promote their brands or their music, but just take a look at the ads that affiliate marketers are purchasing on Myspace. I remember a while back I was asked to read through the advertising contract for placing ads on Myspace. It was a very in-depth document and I think for the price there are many other avenues affiliate marketers can go down. In fact, I recall reviewing the stats from the one ad campaign that we did do, we had thousands and thousands of hits, and never did make a conversion on the offers.

So is my space an out-of-date affiliate revenue source? Lets go there right now and see what ads come up…Singlesnet.com, Taylor Swifts new album promotion, (with video, nice touch), Websinglez.net for Emo Singles - hey wait a minute this looks familiar, have you ever read the Classified section of your neighborhood “Weekly”, “Citylife”, “Thrifty Nickel” newspapers? Thats right, Myspace has turned in to an interactive cheap classified section, promoting singles, music, hooking up with a sexy someone tonight, Man seeking Woman, Woman seeking Man, etc. I wonder if Rolling Stone still has their classified section with their new layout? I hope not, they should save the trees and just use Myspace.

Myspace is a great marketing outlet for large companies that have no problem throwing away millions of dollars just for the sake of saying they have ads on Myspace.

I have had a very eventful couple of days. The biggest news, Diane and I are engaged! I am very excited. This year has been my most life changing and having Diane say Yes to my proposal on Sunday night was further confirmation that I am on the right path and icing on the cake of life. Trust me, I was nervous. It took me from lunch on Saturday ‘til lunch time on Monday to eat. Love You Diane.

I have also been working very hard to update things at Black Diamond Digital. John helped put together a Twitter Meet Up on Friday night and we had a great turn out. Thank you to everyone for making it down and supporting First Friday and the Las Vegas Book Festival. Check out John’s Post.

Over the past few months I have been working on several projects that I have never attempted in my career. And in doing so I have started reading a lot more blogs and listening to a number of podcasts to expand my knowledge. This last week I came across a podcast that was discussing Internet Business and things that one must do in order to continue to be a successful online marketer. One thing that really stuck with me was the mention that things that worked 7 years ago, just won’t work anymore.

Now this sounds like a common sense thing for any online marketing person. The landscape of online marketing moves way to fast and things that worked even 6 months ago are now out of date. But how is the time frame of a new technology measure? If I just learn about a technology that has been out for 2 years, is it out of date for me? If I am going to use this technology in a way that it could have been 2 years ago, is it still not worth exploring. So I decided to dig into my memory banks of the last seven years being in online advertising and share some of my experiences.  Who knows maybe I can set in motion a retro marketing movement for everyone.

Thinking back, when I got my first job in affiliate marketing I worked for a company that had been in the primarily based in promoting adult content online. I was offered a job to help start what they were calling a “main stream” side of their business. This business was to promote software that could be down loaded and clear off a users browser and download history. Hide your tracks from your spouse was really all the software did, however I was fresh out of college, broke and had been unemployed for a few months, so I took the job. This really kicked off my career, because I was in the cutting edge beginnings of the major affiliate marketing networks that we see now.

The first technology that we put together was a exit pop up window that was next to impossible to close without actually shutting down your computer. I know you remember that one. Not something that was complex to program, or really end user friendly, but it was perfect for promoting software that could help cover your tracks. The average computer user, after surfing for material they probably shouldn’t have been, now would get the scare of their lives when a window couldn’t be closed. The window would bounce right back with every time it was closed. The goal with this scare tactic was to get the end user to click on the add as a last resort to try and get the window to close. Trust me even after the customer purchased the software, the window promoting it wasn’t going anywhere.

The question is, is this still a valid technology or approach for online marketing?

The technology is out of date and windows has made upgrades that prevent this practice from going on. I am sure they are some of you great developers out there that will take me up on the challenge to recreated this. However, it is not worth the time.

The approach on the other hand of scaring end users with things they don’t understand in order to make an affiliate commission, if you ask me it is a perfect time to take this approach to your marketing. Especially if you are promoting a service that you can present as must have or else. With the economic scare that we are all in right now, it might be a great time to look into promoting financial tips e books, people are looking for anything that will provide a feel good thought. Did someone just steal your identity?

Bud Light’s “Whassss up!” ads are definitely some of my favorite ads and it is great to see new creative ways of using an audience’s memory of an ad to promote something entirely different.

[View Full Post for Video]

Except of course the “Got Milk?” regurgitation that has swept the world.

Got Bail? Seriously?

I haven’t posted in a few weeks due to focusing my energy on a few other projects that I have been working on. However, I was able to update the JakeLudens.com blog site and I hope you like it.

In an attempt to simplfy my life and to make better content here at JakeLudens.com I will be transfering over some of the content of my other blog FeedingTheBlind.com and slowly phasing that site out for future uses. Not to worry, it will return. For now check out my new page where I will be listing books that I have read that I think others would enjoy. In the next few weeks look for small review snippets for each book listed. I am constantly ready, so please leave a comment on the books page me know any books that you recommend.

I have also updated my blog roll, check out Diane’s Recipes. She has been creating great, low fat, heart healthy foods and getting some great responses over at Recipe Zaar.com

Finally, watch for the closing blog post on Diane’s and My new house. We are finally moved in and have some great finished photos.

I live for creative and shocking advertising…..

Original Post @ Tolex.com

I have been a student of Orwellian Theory for a very long time. I write about it a lot over at Feeding The Blind. Yesterday I wrote a post about the economic down fall that the United States could be facing in the next few months. Yet today I have caught a sort of conspiracy bug.

If you are over the age of 18, you have most likely seen the incredible amount of tax money that has been taken out of your paychecks. This money has been starting to get disputed by the younger generations who think that it is unfair to pay in to social security because by the time they are at retirement age, inflation and population will wipe out any benefits that they could possibly count on. Futhermore, the cost of insurance and medical treatment is so expensive that even some of the larger corporations are cutting back on benefits or insurance all together.

The only solutions to these concerns in the past few years have been the privatization of retirement savings for the country and the socialization of medical treatment for the country. This got me thinking today. Privitization of the retirment funds of this country has not been accepted because of the concerns that individuals as well as the markets can’t be trusted to sustain the money needed to support the population. And Socialised medicine, we this is the USA, and anything even hinting towards socialism is instantly called Communism and dismissed. So what can the United States do before the majority of the population is too old to work, but too poor to live?

Here is an idea, start a war under false pretenses. This gives a great platform to ship off the youngest population that can vote and hold a job, control their pay and their lives. This takes money out of the private sector of the capitalist society by making sure these individuals are paid not to produce any profits, but only to use their pay to buy taxable items. Granted they can’t spend any of their pay, but their wives and children back home can. This literally takes a large portion of our population out of the consumer pool, but still allows them to feed the beast.

Next to make sure the war is supported by the consumers in the United States, increase the cost of the most popular and most used commodity of all, oil. But wait, this doesn’t encourage spending or does it? The largest fear in the United State is to lose you job when times are “bad”, so the last thing American’s are going to give up is driving to work, regardless of the cost. So in fact isn’t there more being spent? Sure, families are cutting back on the “expensive” brand name foods at the grocery store, but have you ever seen the option for generic gas? Think about the ratio, save 50 cents on canned corn, spend $25 extra dollars on a tank of gas.

So what to do next, I know attack the American Dream. Owning a home is part of the American Dream and an even bigger part of the American Dream is keeping up with the Jones. If the guy across the street has a big house, then everyone on the block needs a big house. This is not a new thing, however in the past there were safe guards against keeping up with the Jones. If you didn’t make enough money to have a house the size of a castle, then you simply didn’t live next to a castle. Even more so there was no way to borrow more money than you could afford to pay back in a reasonable amount of time. Well, now we have seen what happens when that safe guard falls and individuals are allowed to borrow way more than they need or can afford. Now the government magically took control of the 51% of all the mortgage payments for the next 30 years. That is a great way of taxation without representation, pay up because we own your house. Scary.

Finally, we come to the announcement from today. The government now bailed out one of the countries largest insurance companies. Not just bailed them out but gave them enough tax payer’s money to own 80% of the company. That is a quick way to control the cost of medical care, just control the insurance premiums. After all the cost of medical treatment is only high because of the amount of insurance doctors as well as patients have to pay.

I am going to close with one of my favorite George Orwell quotes, I think we all need to take a step back from our own distractions and see what is really going on.

All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. - George Orwell

It has been a crazy day to watch the American Stock Market literally start to fall apart. Having lost my job earlier this year I know first hand how bad the economy is getting and I hope we can find a way to turn it around soon. I have been thinking about how bad things are getting all day.

This morning on NPR there was a conversation going on about how the housing market colapse and the true effect that forclosed and abandonded houses have on neighborhoods. Once one house falls beyond repair, they said that the property value in a 1/8 mile radius drops, start adding 3, 4 and 5 forclosed and abandoned houses and you get into miles of depressed house values. It is called the broken window effect, and is mentioned a lot in the book The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.  I read this book a while back and it was a great book and I think it really illustrates what our society is seeing right now. We have hit the tipping point in terms of consumer confidence. But that is obvious. I mean how can you be confident in spending any kind of money if you can’t be sure you will ever earn it back and why would you put it in the bank if the bank is only going to close or be sold off.

Is this the start of out next Great Depression or can out government and large corporations find a way to pull the blinders over our eyes again? It is to the point in our history that the gap between rich and poor is just too large. We are witnessing the natural leveling out of our economy as far as I see it. Today showed how fragile our economy is and we saw how false the country’s most inflated salaries really are. I can only imagine how it would feel to watch your entire nest egg for retirement or for sending your child to college, disappear in a matter of hours, all the while not spending a dime of it.

Sorry big buisness, this one fell on you.