Advertising idea for your film
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Very true. The post on Ebay makes him sound like a college student hurting for cash and will do this for money. With all this other stuff, it makes it sound like it was all a master plan:
Get a buzz going about the eBay auction, get people to go to the website. Now that people go to the site why not charge for a little advertising. Now get other people that will put a tatoo on their forehead and you make more money.
I mean this was on the news. Everyone is talking about this guy. The best press is free press! This guy is cashing in on all of it!
why didn't I think of this!?
Get a buzz going about the eBay auction, get people to go to the website. Now that people go to the site why not charge for a little advertising. Now get other people that will put a tatoo on their forehead and you make more money.
I mean this was on the news. Everyone is talking about this guy. The best press is free press! This guy is cashing in on all of it!
why didn't I think of this!?
Cootdog,
Don't kick yourself too hard for not being on the cutting edge of the forehead advertising revolution. His last bid went up only $100.00 since yesterday, and I wonder now if anyone will really pay. Presumably there are harsh legal penalties for advertsiing and not delivering the goods, particularly if you take the money! But what is the penalty for changing your mind on a bid - to bid and then not purchase? A single negative amidst dozens of positives? I can almost see some college guys now, getting drunk, seeing the bid online and saying "look at THIS dork!" and bidding $10,000.00 and a buddy they know bets against them and on and on and on, and all the time they're getting wasted and falling off their chairs and the guy online has stars in his eyes. It's not like this guy is offering a 1964 Mercedes sports coup or something. I mean, it's his FOREHEAD! He's almost asking for it. But the media wouldn't know who is bidding any more than we do and might not care as long as the story holds audience interest for 20 seconds between story A and story C.
I'm fascinated by this whole thing. What's the reality? Earnest, average joe hip kid using his smarts to drum up some college dough or scheming 20-something future madison avenue monster? (I've done and do work for guys on madison ave so I know a madison ave monster when I see one!) Excited corporate big name sponsors getting involved and creating a whole new advertising genre or wise guy college kids upping the e-bay bids for shits and giggles while the guy online tries to figure out if his highest bidder is Coke or Pepsi?
And the really unfortunate part? When all is said and done we may never know the answers! :-(
Don't kick yourself too hard for not being on the cutting edge of the forehead advertising revolution. His last bid went up only $100.00 since yesterday, and I wonder now if anyone will really pay. Presumably there are harsh legal penalties for advertsiing and not delivering the goods, particularly if you take the money! But what is the penalty for changing your mind on a bid - to bid and then not purchase? A single negative amidst dozens of positives? I can almost see some college guys now, getting drunk, seeing the bid online and saying "look at THIS dork!" and bidding $10,000.00 and a buddy they know bets against them and on and on and on, and all the time they're getting wasted and falling off their chairs and the guy online has stars in his eyes. It's not like this guy is offering a 1964 Mercedes sports coup or something. I mean, it's his FOREHEAD! He's almost asking for it. But the media wouldn't know who is bidding any more than we do and might not care as long as the story holds audience interest for 20 seconds between story A and story C.
I'm fascinated by this whole thing. What's the reality? Earnest, average joe hip kid using his smarts to drum up some college dough or scheming 20-something future madison avenue monster? (I've done and do work for guys on madison ave so I know a madison ave monster when I see one!) Excited corporate big name sponsors getting involved and creating a whole new advertising genre or wise guy college kids upping the e-bay bids for shits and giggles while the guy online tries to figure out if his highest bidder is Coke or Pepsi?
And the really unfortunate part? When all is said and done we may never know the answers! :-(
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A bid is a binding legal contract. Bidding a few thousand dollars (or a couple tens of thousands) and then not paying can have pretty harsh penalties all its own.
If this were to happen to me, and I were in his shoes... I would obtain all contact information for the winning bidder, contact them and offer them another chance to make good on the payment.. if they still were unwilling I'd take them to court, and offer to the next highest bidder.. who if they declined purchase I would take advantage of the free listing credit and relist the item, OR continue down the list of high bidders.. either way you're still guaranteed to win that court case, since they broke a legally binding contract, in which case you would receive at the least the amount they bid for.. and it may be that you in turn would not have to provide the service they originally bid for, since they didn't make good on the contract you are no longer legally bound ho uphold your end either.
If this were to happen to me, and I were in his shoes... I would obtain all contact information for the winning bidder, contact them and offer them another chance to make good on the payment.. if they still were unwilling I'd take them to court, and offer to the next highest bidder.. who if they declined purchase I would take advantage of the free listing credit and relist the item, OR continue down the list of high bidders.. either way you're still guaranteed to win that court case, since they broke a legally binding contract, in which case you would receive at the least the amount they bid for.. and it may be that you in turn would not have to provide the service they originally bid for, since they didn't make good on the contract you are no longer legally bound ho uphold your end either.
Will,
Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating breaking the e-bay terms of business or any other, for that matter; and I have no idea what the e-bay terms are either since I've never used it plus I'm supposing one has to input one's personal info the e-bay system so people just can't run around willy-nilly doing whatever they want. The flip side in a court case is that a college student isn't likely to have much money to pay and I doubt very much any judge in his right mind would award damages in the amount of $20,000.00 for the NON-USE of advertising on a guy's forehead. I mean, it isn't like his forehead routinely brings in a hundred grand a year and the plaintiff could make a case for monies lost by the material breach of contract on the part of some kid who may only have his shirt and some beer money to his name, anyway. More to the point, there are plenty of kids breaking all sorts of rules on the internet, so it isn't wnat the facts are, but what the facts are PERCIEVED TO BE by the person breaking the rules. By that reckoning anything is possible.
Then again, the ordinary rules of conduct while important - always - probably don't apply in a real-life scenario when you're talking about paying a guy tens of thousands to write "eat at joe's" on his frontal lobe.
Once again, this really is fascinating - that or I've spent too much time working too hard.
:-p
(EDIT: In his extended and running commentary at the bottom of the ad which I didn't bother to read previously, he says he's getting alot of bids from people with no e-bay bidding hstory, and therefore wants those bidders to e-mail him stating who they are and what they want the advertising for. This suggests, alas, alot of what we could be suspecting: any jokey joe putting in a bid for the hell of it, just to send the guy up)
Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating breaking the e-bay terms of business or any other, for that matter; and I have no idea what the e-bay terms are either since I've never used it plus I'm supposing one has to input one's personal info the e-bay system so people just can't run around willy-nilly doing whatever they want. The flip side in a court case is that a college student isn't likely to have much money to pay and I doubt very much any judge in his right mind would award damages in the amount of $20,000.00 for the NON-USE of advertising on a guy's forehead. I mean, it isn't like his forehead routinely brings in a hundred grand a year and the plaintiff could make a case for monies lost by the material breach of contract on the part of some kid who may only have his shirt and some beer money to his name, anyway. More to the point, there are plenty of kids breaking all sorts of rules on the internet, so it isn't wnat the facts are, but what the facts are PERCIEVED TO BE by the person breaking the rules. By that reckoning anything is possible.
Then again, the ordinary rules of conduct while important - always - probably don't apply in a real-life scenario when you're talking about paying a guy tens of thousands to write "eat at joe's" on his frontal lobe.
Once again, this really is fascinating - that or I've spent too much time working too hard.
:-p
(EDIT: In his extended and running commentary at the bottom of the ad which I didn't bother to read previously, he says he's getting alot of bids from people with no e-bay bidding hstory, and therefore wants those bidders to e-mail him stating who they are and what they want the advertising for. This suggests, alas, alot of what we could be suspecting: any jokey joe putting in a bid for the hell of it, just to send the guy up)
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Either that, or some advertising exec has seen the media coverage and thought, Hmmm now there's a new angle to present to my client, Brand-X Soda, or whatever... signed up on ebay and placed a bid. That too is a likely scenario. 
Well, that of course is what presumably his ideal scenario would be and what he's hoping for. And maybe it's happening; as of this writing his bids are over $25,000.00 -IF (BIG if) they're legit bids, and 25 G is a drop in the bucket to even less ythan high-end advertising. Then again, there may just be some smart-alecks on their computers sending him up. Wth 8 hours left to go, we may (or may not) find out if he was successful by tomorrow. But if he is, don't tell Cootdog - he's already is playing out the famous National Lampoon cover but in this case has a gun to his OWN head because he didn't think of it first (and who can blame him? 
CootDog said:
All I know is that and ad at Ebaumsworld.com is only $200 per week. LOOK AT HIS TRAFFIC and LOOK AT EBAUM'S TRAFFIC . I feel sorry for the saps who bought adspace on "Humanadspace.com". They got ripped off!
It's all about the hype. Just like with film advertising, the more it's hyped up, the better it seems.. til you go see it and it's a boring waste of time. haha
hahaAlexa sucks and does not show true traffic. It shows traffic from people that surf that site that have the Alexa bar installed. All you have to do to boost up your points in Alexa is get the bar and keep going to your site, clear cookies, then go to your site and so on.
No matter what, he still had almost 80,000,000 hits in 1 day on his site, per Alexa. That's more than http://discountcommunication.com gets in an entire year!
While there are more visitors on the Ebaum site, there is no hype/buzz about that site at this time. This forehead dude has been on the news and has had some pretty crazy publicity.
If I was going to spend that money for DiscountCommunication.com it would probably be on Ebaum but most would be advertising on Google.
This dude is still making some serious dollars. and that's an awesome idea that is turning into some $$$.
No matter what, he still had almost 80,000,000 hits in 1 day on his site, per Alexa. That's more than http://discountcommunication.com gets in an entire year!
While there are more visitors on the Ebaum site, there is no hype/buzz about that site at this time. This forehead dude has been on the news and has had some pretty crazy publicity.
If I was going to spend that money for DiscountCommunication.com it would probably be on Ebaum but most would be advertising on Google.
This dude is still making some serious dollars. and that's an awesome idea that is turning into some $$$.
My site's on Alexa, and I don't have the "Alexa Bar"...and It's been accurate for my site before.
There's generally a large difference between "Hits" as listed in most server stats.. and "Visits" which is what most people refer to as hits.. a hit is actually every time the browser contacts the server, which, realistically could be many numerous times per page.
Yes, and hits could be done via web crawlers and bots but shouldn't be counted as actual visits to the site, while that gives you an idea of overall traffic it's not actual viewers of the site. I always review the referrer list to know where the traffifc is coming from and that helps provide a more acurate view of the site as opposed to hits
- Coot
- Coot
I just use webalizer.. it breaks everything down. Even tells me what part of the world people are connecting from.