Stirling McLaughlin’s Cabinet of Internet Curiosities

Imagine for a second that you’ve hired a contractor to build a set of shelves in your living room. They come in and measure. You discuss what you will be using the shelves for. Maybe you even show them some pictures clipped out from some home decorating magazines. They give you an estimate, and you cut them a check. They come back a week later and start building your new shelves.

One night, after the construction has started, you get an idea. You get a hammer from the toolbox, grab a few pieces of scap wood, and bang in a few extra shelves. Maybe you even pull out a couple of those nails. If you can’t figure out why they’re there, they probably aren’t important. Before you know it, you’re done! In just a few hours you’ve doubled your storage space!

When the workers come back the next day to finish the job, what do you suppose their reaction will be? Do you think they’ll be thrilled at all the work you’ve saved them? Do you thik they’ll praise you for your ingenuity? No. they’ll probably be pretty angry.

But why? Why should they care? The customer is always right, aren’t they? Afterall, It’s your bookshelf in your living room!

The answer is twofold:

1. These are profesionals, hired to do a job. By cutting them out of the decision making process, you are essentially saying their hard work and expertise is worthless.
2. The finished product, in this case your bookshelf, is a reflection on them. If you damage the finished product, you are damaging their reputation.

This type of thing happens all the time in advertising and graphic design. At the 11th hour a client makes “one small change” that fundamentally alters the final product. An ad or a website may not collapse on your head, but by ignoring the recommendations of the advertising and design professionals you employ, you risk causing serious structural damage to your brand.

If you wake up late at night with a brilliant idea about how to change the colors of your logo, or tweak the copy in your ads, put down the hammer and go back to bed. Call your agency in the morning and discus your ideas with them.

You’ll be happy that you did.

Someone once pointed out to me that rap music was never truly embraced by the recording industry until Run DMC started selling sneakers. Run DMC’s relationship with Adidas is well known. Their repeated lyrical references (My Adidas) and shell top centric style eventually led MTV to start blurring out product logos. MTV’s alleged concern was that companies could exploit artists by providing them with free products in exchange for what was essentially free advertising. Of course, giving celebrities gifts to promote your product is an extremely common practice. Perhaps MTVs concern had more to do with being used as an ad platform without getting paid.

Brands and products, appearing in rap lyrics since the days of RunDMC, have become increasingly prevalent. The idea that these references are simply a reflection of rappers’ immersion in an ad-obsessed culture, however, is somewhat naive. A liquor industry insider who spoke on the condition of anonymity, (actually, I met him at a party and I can’t remember his name) insisted that his company didn’t pay rappers to mention their oft touted brand. However, he was certain that Courvoisier had essentially contracted Busta Rhymes and P. Diddy to make the song “Pass the Courvoisier“.

It may sound inconceivable to some that an artist would shill for a product in this way. What I find inconceivable is this notion that so many otherwise business savvy rappers and entertainers would do it for free. I would speculate that most rap artists are engaging in product placement. If they aren’t, then maybe they should be.

The general consensus, at least among people who spend far too much time online, is that traditional advertising is broken. With an ever expanding number of TV channels, its a lot tougher to break through the clutter and get your message across. Plus people can fast forward through the commercials anyway. And when was the last time someone saw that newspaper ad? My guess is it was around the same time when people actually read the newspaper.

Companies are starting to catch on. Increasingly we are seeing more ad dollars being spent online. The problem we are now facing is that our tactics have remained fundamentally unchanged. Banner ads are the new print ads. Plus, as technologies like flash get better, websites are becoming more and more like TV spots. That’s not a good thing!

If it broke the first time, why aren’t we making more of a concerted effort to change the model and keep it from breaking again. The world has changed. We haven’t.

In the meantime Google has used AdSense to turn the Internet into an extremely powerful direct marketing tool. Why should companies pay for conceptual, engaging advertising when they can just grab a bunch of key words? Why should websites run traditional banner ads when they can get better results and more money from AdSense? It’s one thing when little blogs like mine use AdSense, but have you looked at CNN.com recently? Scared yet?

I am.

I realize the title of this post is a little cheap, but in truth, this kind of cheap tactic is exactly what I want to talk about…

Toto was counting on this ploy grabbing attention when it launched it’s website, and the accompanying ad campaign, for the Washlet. As you might have guessed from the picture above, naked butts, and pictures of them, factor heavily in the advertising. This may be fitting considering the Washlet is, well, a sort of… booty irrigation system. Still, is this the best way to sell a fancy toilet? There is a reason why adult diaper commercials always show people playing tennis…

What I find more agrevating than this kind of cheap ad, is the public outcry surrounding it. Recently, Toto agreed to place a large white bar across the backsides on their Times Square billboard after a local church filled a lawsuit. What is perhaps the saddest part of all of this, as my friend Wilder has pointed out, is that when you censor these ads, you’re not just censoring bottoms.

Your censoring happiness.