Wow. Double truncation failure in a Facebook ad.
Tag: advertising
Amazon Affiliate No More
I’ve been an Amazon Associate for several years now. I figured if I was linking to them anyway, as I often was when I wrote about books or music, I might as well get something out of it. Though I did end up adding a few more ads over time, always trying to keep them relevant and unobtrusive.
I never pulled in a lot – maybe $10 to $15 a month on average, enough to buy an extra book or two (though recently it’s mainly been baby supplies), or counteract some of my hosting costs. That’s over now, though, because California just declared me (and other affiliates, of course) to be a local agent for Amazon, requiring them to pay local sales tax within the state. In response, Amazon has shut down the affiliate program within California so that they won’t fall under the new requirements.
I guess I’ll leave the inline links, since those are mostly the ones I would have included anyway, but there’s not much point in including those “Buy this thing I was writing about from Amazon!” ads anymore.
First Line, Last Line, Whatever
There’s something wrong with this advertisement for flu vaccination services:
The slogan just bugs me, because they got the metaphor wrong.
Think about it: Vaccines work by training your body’s immune system to recognize a particular type of germ ahead of time, so that if you get exposed to the real thing later on, you can fight it off before it actually manages to make you sick. In terms of a warfare metaphor, it’s about training the troops who guard the home front so that if the enemy successfully invades past your borders, you can fight them off before they become entrenched.
The first line of defense would be something that stops them from invading in the first place. A well-defended border, in terms of ground troops. The Coast Guard in terms of sea. Radar and anti-aircraft missiles to identity and shoot down incoming enemy aircraft.
Your first line of defense against the flu? That would be your skin.
So wash your hands!
</pedantic>
Links: Facts, Moon, Toyota and New Spice
A university library has put together a great parody of the Old Spice ad campaign: Study Like a Scholar, Scholar. (via This Is True )
NPR story: In Politics, Sometimes The Facts Don’t Matter
New research suggests that misinformed people rarely change their minds when presented with the facts — and often become even more attached to their beliefs. The finding raises questions about a key principle of a strong democracy: that a well-informed electorate is best.
This makes me feel a little less enthused about the next two items:
It’s incredibly cool that we’ve got photos of the Apollo 16 landing site. (via Phil Plait) But that won’t convince people who are absolutely certain that the landings were faked.
And a U.S. Department of Transportation investigation of Toyota crashes blamed on sudden acceleration has implicated driver error in nearly all cases. Of the 75 fatal crashes investigates, only one could be verified as a problem with the vehicle: the Lexus crash last August in which the accelerator was caught on the floor mat, leading to a recall. Of course, the court of popular opinion has already made up its mind…
National Park Service vs. Robots From Space
If you went out to the movies in the US during 2009, there’s a good chance you saw a turn-off-your-phone PSA in which a movie about “robots from space” tries to negotiate blowing up Mount Rushmore.
In a case of life imitating art, the National Park Service is currently battling Transformers 3 — a movie about robots from space — over just what they can and can’t do with a national monument!
Okay, you can’t blow up a national monument, but…
Bill Line, Park Service spokesman, said the producers “have asked to do some things that simply are not done on the National Mall,” among them staging a “car race” along the Mall’s gravel paths and flooding it with artificial light in order to shoot at night.
Apparently it’s not unique to Transformers 3, but a fairly frequent battle between the park service and film producers, which means Sprint’s video isn’t just a funny story, but a bit of an in-joke to those familiar with the industry.
Hmm, any chance the new movie will have a chorus singing “Robots from space!” in the background?
LOST Commercials Explained
Here’s my theory on LOST’s weird commercials: They figure that anyone still watching the show after this long doesn’t need to be convinced to watch the next episode, just told when it’s on. So they might as well have fun with it.
There’s a Slogan for That
“There’s a ___ for that” is the new “Got ___?”