With all this talk of Super Bowl commercials, I was reminded of a textbook example of a terrible commercial that aired during Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000.  Although I personally can’t remember it nor would have even noticed it at the mere age of 11 years old, I still find it amusing that this particular commercial for OurBeginning.com was so horrible.  The website now is some kind of day care center in Seattle, which I was very disappointed to see considering the fact that the airtime cost them a couple million dollars.  The site used to be a website that produced, of all things… wedding invitations.  I just can’t understand what made these entrepreneurs think that this was good targeting.  Perhaps I was too young during this Super Bowl and only recently have all commercials been geared toward beer, Coke, and Hyundai cars…

Yet another example of my nerdiness became apparent to me when I was the only one in the room that was astounded after watching the Google commercial.  One of my friends commented, “Now John is going to text all his cyber friends”. Sadly, I did…

After thinking about the horrible wedding invitation targeting incident, I started to think of the blunders Ryan, Rich and I have made with our targeting in the past.  One particular example I had in mind was some of our first Facebook campaigns that we started with in the education niche.  In fact, they were so bad we couldn’t even use most of the data in order to turn the campaign profitable so it just had to be scrapped.  Have you made any particularly stupid targeting mistakes in your career? Surely not as stupid as the wedding invitation blunder, right?

How’s it going, everyone?  I have been ghost lately on the blog but thankfully Ryan and Richard have been picking up the slack with quality posts.  I’m having trouble adapting to my new schedule here in school with 4 hours of straight class on Tuesday and Thursday.  Good thing they are all entrepreneur and marketing classes though!  Other than that I’ve been looking over some of the projects Ryan and I have been throwing together and trying to balance my life as best as possible without compromising too much.  I’ve been exposed to a lot of AWESOME entrepreneur articles and information in my classes that I am going to be sharing very soon.

I really debated talking about this next topic for fear of negative media attention but it’s so entertaining that I decided I might as well post it for everyone out there to see what their thoughts are on the whole mess.   As soon as I got to school, rush week started for all the incoming freshman of 2009.  As I said before, fraternities are huge at my school and I am also a member of one.  Hopefully you are a little familiar with what I’m talking about but on the last night of rush week we give a bid/invitation to the kids who we want.  The following night we then have what’s called “Kiss Night”…

Kiss Night described in two words… mass chaos.  Basically before the event every greek member who got a bid into a fraternity or sorority gets extremely drunk before the event and heads to a club where the object of the night is to kiss as many people as possible.  No shame, no holding back, all social rules are cut loose.  As a result, you have sloppy 18 and 19 year olds going around making out with 50-60 people, if not more.  As you may have guessed, authorities do not approve of this event very much due to underage drinking and etc. and this year it was cut short because all the ambulances in the area were in use due to the massive amount of ambulances in the area being used for alcohol poisoning.  Fortunately nobody on campus suffered any irreparable damage so we were lucky in that aspect.  The repercussions of the event have not been completely determined though so we are staying tuned.

So yeah, Kiss Night was my kick off to a new year two years in a row, maybe it will prove good luck this year too?  Definitely a unique experience that I will never forget for more reasons than one… (One reason that cost me 9 stitches, but we’ll save that for a rainy day!)   More relevant blog posts to affiliate marketing to come…

How sad it is…  Great post guys!

http://www.ppc.bz/get-dirt-nasty/leaked-bye-bye-american-acai

My brother stumbled upon a pretty funny video on YouTube.  It’s probably been on a social media site or  your aunt’s forwarded chain letter but nevertheless it’s still pretty funny.

It’s Friday the 13th so I figured it would be the perfect time for a fun post.  This one is just for a laugh, so don’t take it too serious.   Without any further ado:

YOU KNOW YOU’RE A SUPER AFFILIATE WHEN…

You drive a nicer car than anyone in your family.

You read AffBuzz more than your local newspaper.

You cringe every time you hear or see anything about the FTC.

Random people message you on Facebook looking for employment.

You’d give up your girlfriend before your traffic sources.

You’d rather scale a campaign than go out on Saturday night.

You hire your parents to work for you.

Your neighbors think you’re a drug dealer.

Your parents think you’re a drug dealer.

You think Oprah Winfrey is a greedy bitch.

You’d like to see Dr. Oz’s medical degree.

You know what “Slingin’ da berries” means.

You can make a bank teller’s jaw drop.

You smoke the eCig and think about what a missed opportunity.

You replace all your friends with Affiliate Managers.

You understand this sentence: Based on our spend we think that’s an adequate EPC given the CTR.

Your credit card bill is 6-figures on a monthly basis. (or 7)

You think $100,000 isn’t that much money.

You think $200,000 isn’t that much money.

Hell, you think $500,000 isn’t that much money.

Your girlfriend has to hide your iPhone to get your attention.

You travel to a major American city at least once a month.

Feel free to add your own in the comment box below. I had several more but I figured I had to stop at some point and get some work done. I hope everyone has a great weekend!

I was taking a break for a few minutes and decided to browse Digg to see if I could find something to clear my head.  Usually it’s the stories that I find entertaining but surprisingly it was one of the advertisements on the right side.   A lot of times I will notice certain ads and have a certain admiration for them but  I can never tell if it’s the consumer side of me that appeals to these ads or if it’s just because I’m always looking for new ideas for my own ads.  In this case, I feel like this is just a quality ad that had a lot of thought put behind it and turned out very amusing:

You can see the Flash version here where you can actually pick if you want to let Kimbo do what he wants to the caterpillar or vice versa.

I feel like to a certain extent other advertisements are great to enhance your own advertisements (even if they aren’t rivaling your own).  As an affiliate marketer, do you have this same mindset?  Or are you the guy that turns on AdBlock on FireFox and flips the channel as soon as the commercials start up?

Without a doubt Billy Mays will be remembered as a legend in the direct response marketing industry.  Billy had the look and was an excellent pitchman.  Just like a Super Affiliate, Billy drove a $200,000 Bentley and lived in a 8,000 square foot mansion.  He’s someone I personally will always remember and look up to for the things he did in the industry.  Working in the direct response marketing industry online, I thought what a better way to honor Billy than to dress up as him for my Halloween costume.

After hours of searching online, no company made a costume, so I had to get creative.  It took about a week, but I grew out my beard and canceled my monthly haircut appointment.  I then went out, bought a blue button up shirt, printed off an Oxi Clean logo, and made my own costume.   Check it out for yourself:

We’re going to head out to some Halloween parties and I’m going to try to sell this bottle of Acai.  Let’s see how well I can ‘pitch it’!

Happy Halloween everyone – have a safe evening!

OK, so this doesn’t have anything to do with Internet marketing but this should give everyone a good laugh:

Still want to buy that tennis racket for your Wii?  “Make sure your accessories are definitely latched on…”

Alright, before I make this post I want everyone to know I’m not trying to become a rapper. I was laying around last night thinking of a creative blog and it just popped in my head to remix the entrance theme to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.  Random I know, but sometimes the best ideas I’ve ever had just randomly come to me.  Anyways, this was fun to write so hopefully it’s fun to read:

Now, this is a story all about how
My life got flipped-turned upside down
And I’d like to take a minute
Just sit right there
I’ll tell you how I became an Internet millionaire

In my office focused and amazed
Typing wrestling news is how I spent most of my days
Chillin’ out maxin’ relaxin’ all cool
Searchin’ the ‘net I found a pay-per-click school
More than a dozen tries
And still no good
I scaled that campaign as much as I could
I hit a home run and success I declared
I said let’s do some media buying and go on a tear

Puttin up numbers day after day
The networks were askin’ who is Ryan Gray?
Threw up the offers and got people to click it
John pulled up in his BMW and said let’s kick it

First class, white Mercedes to drive
The Super Affiliate Twins have finally arrived
Is that what a success story is like?
Hmmmm this might be alright

But wait I hear this stuff is hard, challenging at that
Super Scared at times, what if I have a heart attack?
I don’t think so
If we didn’t take a chance, we’d never made it there
This is how I became an Internet millionaire

Well, the campaigns are built and ready for traffic
So let’s build that office and freakin staff it
Never gave up even though it wasn’t easy
There were times where marketing just made me queezy

I had a dream, now it’s almost funny
How I was almost afraid to invest a little money
If anything I can say our story is rare
But I thought ‘Ahh forget it’ – ‘I’m an Internet millionaire’

I started blogging and now this is gettin silly
Who ever thought I’d be makin’ a milli
Never gave up and ignored the haters
They’re just jealous they’re workin as a waiter
I still can’t believe it, I’m finally there
To sit on my comp as an Internet millionaire