Do You Have Sore Nipples?

Yes, this is a real ad. Yes, I think it's funny. Yes, it's a terrible ad.

The illustrations for this Boots Nipple Cream ad are amazing, but the copy is what kills me. I know middle-schoolers who can write better body. The headline did catch my attention enough that I read the rest, so I guess the only thing I can fault this ad for is the sell at the bottom.

Are We Talking Boobs or What?

Pay attention to the subtitles, and I don't think you can miss the other part of the equation.

Carmen Electra Has A Crush On Me!?

Contrary to natural science, it could be possible according to this banner ad I saw on my MySpace profile. I mean, they know who I am, so maybe she saw my profile and digs my style, ya know? For Christ's sake, when will the terrible banner ads cease, and what client approves shit like this for publication? AHHH! Better yet, what moron would actually click to find out?

Consumers Deciding Prices? What's This Anti-Capitalist Craziness?

You probably heard all about Radiohead's decision to allow fans to download their latest release In Rainbows and pay what they want for it. You might even have been one of the 1.2 million to download it legitimately from their Web site, or one of the other half-a-million to download it illegally. So why would the Band be crazy enough to offer it's brand new release for $0-$whatever? Well, it's not just because their one of the greatest bands of all time. Behind all the glory of the decision was marketing genius. In return for downloading the album from Radiohead's Web site, fans submitted personal information that the Band can now use to promote tours and merchandise (where most of their money is made). They now have data for 1.2 million of their fans. And on top of it all, 144,000 fans paid between $8 and $12 for the 10 tracks.

So where does this model of commerce fall into the realm of doable and not? Adweek pointed out the obvious that this kind of "pay what you want" model would create chaos in a Wal-Mart or Best Buy setting (60" Plasmas for free! Hell Yeah!). However, This sort of exchange has been taking place in other genres of trade besides music.

The Tera Bite Lounge in Kirkland, Wa is an upscale voluntary payment cafe/deli where you can get a sandwich, coffee, pastry, and pay what you wish - maybe you need caffeine, but you think their coffee sucks, you can just put in a $5er at the end of the week(I don't really know how their coffee taste). I never carry cash, and I'm always hungry, so it works out well for me. If you want more info, you can check em out at Terabite.org
As far as the marketing goes for this type of transaction, there is no data like Radiohead gets. But that's the plus - you pay what you want, no prejudice against you, no data gathered.

It appears the Radiohead model works best for digital commerce as far as marketing is concerned. Aime Street, an online music store, allows it's customers to decide prices in a different way - popularity. Artists can sell their music on the site, but everyone starts at the same low price of 49cents. The more the song is downloaded, the higher the price goes. It gives true value to the product; the price is truly determined by the market and not by the industry. It's also a great way to tell if your band sucks or not.

I think the "pay what you want" model is also a great way to understand the consumer on a deeper level. You can see how much they would be willing to pay for different kinds of product. You can then target them in a way that best enables you to milk them for all their worth. For the 12 percent of people who paid $8 to $12 for the Radiohead album they could have downloaded for free, what's to stop marketers from targeting that 12 percent with high priced/fixed priced merchandise. And for the 62 percent that downloaded it for free - hit those cheap bastards up with discounts/savings/etc.

So far Tera Bite Lounge has been able to stay in business, and Radiohead successfully disseminated their music and gained a bunch of valuable, marketable data.

Gisele In A Water Dress? Please and Thank You

Shoe company Grendene has a new poster model. Her name is Gisele Bundchen. She's a Brazilian bomb-shell and the ad has her in a water dress. A dress made of water. Hell yeah. I think they did a great job on creating the dress - the artwork looks awesome. But really, I thought the dress looks really nifty. If I was a lady, would it make me want to buy her sandals? probably not. If she was selling guy's sandals, I'd be all over that. I don't quite understand their direction with the creative, but I think the artwork is cool. This was definitely created by a guy, and the creative was definitely sold to a guy.

Facebook Application Trickery

I had been very careful to avoid adding some of the many applications available on Facebook, until recently when I decided to add as many as possible in 15 minutes. The result was not only chaos on my profile, but the discovery of Faceook's trickery. On a few of the applications, in order to use them, you have to send the application to 10 or more friends. In addition, your profile is queried higher in search results with the more people you disseminate it to. Ridiculous. I just wanted to find out who had a crush on me, but I guess it wasn't meant to be.

The one good thing about adding content to your Facebook profile that has been an improvement to MySpace's format has been the ability to hide applications on your profile. So why am I analyzing this so much? I think it will be interesting to see how Google will handle applications, and how the clutter and cleanliness will affect each network.

Scrabulous not so fabulous

While we're on the subject, a little note of interest for all half-a-million daily users of the Scrabulous app. Facebook has been asked to scrap the popular game (is that a pun? intended none the less) as Hasbro/Mattel believe it violates their copyright of the board game Scrabble.

Rory Cellan-Jones a BBC technology correspondent put it best by saying, "Early dreams of being a happy-clappy, open-source, 'do no evil' kind of business soon fade when the realisation dawns that you are worth suing"

About 15,000 people signed a petition in the 2 days following the request to delete the Scrabulous app. We'll see where this goes. It's not like you can't play a scrabble game somewhere else on the internet. jeez.

Toothed Vagina . . . (cringe, ouch)

There's a new movie premiering January 18th called Teeth. I saw this via Adrants, but you have got to check out the synopsis write-up on this - hilarious, and scary. I think the script writer had a bad nightmare during puberty or something. The movie is about vagina dentata, which is the belief that a woman may eat or castrate her partner during intercourse. In addition to the synopsis, I recommend reading the rest of the information about vagina dentata - link provided below.

Teeth Synopsis
Vagina Dentata