How to go viral without making a cent

It's been almost five years since I started this blog. I don't do it for money, as I already have a full-time job as a Creative Director. So there are no ads, and I don't get paid for clicks. I just write these posts as part of my ongoing professional development, reviewing the fruits of my industry and thinking out loud about the ethics and social issues involved.

I've managed to generate a bit of a following. The numbers aren't huge, but they include some people who themselves have huge followings on advertising, culture, and social science blogs. As a result, every once in a while, the content in one of my posts goes viral. That happened again this week.

Here I was, just not minding my own business as usual, and I saw some really shitty photoshop from Target show up in a Facebook post by Photoshop Disasters. Since sex, sexism and body image in advertising are some of my regular topics, I whipped up a quick "Ethical Adman" post about it, then promptly returned to my day job.

Then this happened:

That mountain range is an analytic spike that hit on Tuesday. It turned out that Jezebel picked up the story and linked me as the source, but not Photoshop Disasters. That gave me about 6,000 extra views. Then Buzzfeed picked up the story from Jezebel, and didn't credit me. I got no direct traffic from Buzzfeed, but may have gained some secondary hits via Jezebel.

Even more traffic came when Kim Komando, "America's Digital Goddess®" teased the Target story and very kindly added, "Click here to see the full story and more photos from The Ethical Adman." Woo-hoo! That was worth almost 10,000 extra hits.

Next thing I knew, I was linked as "an observant blogger" on the Today Show's blog. The frigging Today Show! But surprisingly, that only racked up another 6500-or-so hits. (I guess they'd better stick with mainstream media.)

With all this attention, I was bound to get some of the negative kind. Several people, claiming to be graphic designers, accused me of overreacting and seeing hurtful "thinning" in what they saw as just sloppy Photoshop. But the real surprise came when fanatical followers of the fitness blog, Blogilates, started an organized campaign to accuse me of "stealing" content.

For the record, the Blogilates post went up after 11 pm, Pacific Time. By that point, the Photoshop Disasters/Ethical Adman/Jezebel/Buzzfeed posts were already hours old. Blogilates author Cassey Ho did, however, manage to become the credited source for a post on CNN's HLN blog.

Since CNN, Blogilates, The Today Show, Kim Komando, Buzzfeed, Jezebel, and Photoshop Disasters are all commercial blogs, they all made money off of Target's bad Photoshopping. I didn't make a penny. How stupid am I?

Oh well, like I said at the top, I already have a job. If anything, this whole affair helps me with my online brand as a "concerned advertising guy" and adds to my credibility when I give clients advice on social media and content marketing strategies. This whole thing also helped my all-time pageviews top the two million mark.

So in the spirit of karma, I'd like to give a big shout-out to the person who apparently first caught the Target fiasco and submitted it to PSD, and also made no money from it:

Major Photoshop Fail @Target! http://t.co/EcGtk46SSl @photoshopfail
— Adam Z Lein (@adamzea) March 9, 2014

If you don't already, I suggest you follow Adam Z Lein on Twitter. You'd be amazed how ahead of the curve you can be when you know the right people.

F'd Ad (Network) Fridays: Google Adcensorship

Adland, the internet's longest-running adblog, has been experiencing some financial troubles of late. They made it through the New Year deadline by fundraising to cover unexpected server fees, only to have their ad revenue rug pulled out from under them by Google Adsense.

The blog's owner, Åsk Wäppling, recently got a notice from Google that read:

"As stated in our program policies, AdSense publishers are not permitted to place Google ads on pages with adult or mature content. In addition to photos and videos which contain nudity or sexual activities, below are some other examples of unacceptable content: * Lewd or provocative images * Crude or indecent language, including adult stories * Sexual tips or advice * Sexual fetish sites (e.g. foot fetish content) * Adult toys or products * Ads or links to external sites containing adult content * Adult links and/or adult keywords within the meta data in the source code of your site"

The offending content? This image, from a four-year-old post in the archives.

Åsk points out that Adsense regularly serves up much more sexually-charged content than this, like Evony's notorious titty ads.

What is going on here? Adland was kicked off Adsense almost a year ago for a seven-year-old post  showing an ad with bare bums and complaining about its sexism.

Incredible that lingerie photos, of a type that can be found in any department store catalogue, have been labelled "mature content". Someone needs to get their head out of their ass.

Bloglove is in the air... #saveadland

When I started this blog, in early 2009, I decided I had better carefully study the style and success of some of the more popular ad bloggers. Quickly, I realized that there was a small group who I ended up reading most often: AdFreak, Copyranter, Adrants, Adland, Osocio and (of course) Ads of The World - the place everyone goes for content.

As I found my voice and my niche, I also found that these blogs were run by a close-knit fraternity of ad nerds who were completely modest and approachable. Tim Nudd of AdFreak is an Anglo-American family man who balances being edgy and fun with the demands of representing a corporate brand. Steve Hall of Adrants is an apparent ad convention junkie who also writes for Playboy's "I just visit it for the articles" blog. Åsk Wäppling of Adland is a Swedish design nerd and single mom who is the veteran of the group (having blogged since 1996). Marc van Gurp of Osocio is a Dutch family man and digital designer who has a passion for great work that inspires social change. Ivan Raszl of Ads of The World is a Hungarian family man, designer, and now New Canadian. Even the anonymous Copyranter, the cynical Rorschach of the group, is surprisingly humble and accessible and on his comments thread.

It has been a pleasure to find myself accepted into this group, even though I'm a noob and don't have a massive following. All of the above have shared content from this blog, from time to time,  and have respectfully linked back. Tim and I chat frequently on Google. Steve runs a Facebook club, of sorts, for fellow enthusiasts. I flirt shamelessly with Åsk on Facebook. Marc and I are now good friends (although we've never met in person) and collaborators on Osocio. Ivan and I just recently had a meet-up at a pub when I was doing focus groups in his new home base. And Copyranter, he occasionally gives me a nice shout-out.

But the real sense of community occurred to me just today, when Åsk found herself at the business end of an unpayable server bill. She put out an appeal, and... well... I'll let her tell it:

"We've raised $1,287.15 for the $2,658.50 so far, but that's not even the best news here. The best news is that so many of you care enough to retweet and donate and post blog posts and tell your friends. I honestly wasn't expecting this much love, and I am humbled by it.

@Adfreak asked everyone to please help save us, @agencyspy put a link in their tuesday morning stir to longtime adgrunt Purplesimon's appeal post. I didn't ask @purplesime to do that, and I didn't ask @imperica to post this appeal post either. I'm grateful they both did. 

Turns out that Imperica have a good grasp of how much I do here (read: everything), and some readers revealed they had no idea. Thus came the tweets showing me building hardware (acme, apex and acme again) which was quite fun for a bit. At least for me. :)
Even the End days of advertising joined in making a special sarcastic toon just for adland. Sweet. 

And to top it all off, my ex-ex hosting place Memset contacted me over twitter to see if they can help. They must have forgiven me for almost taking down their network a few superbowls ago. 

And today, Amazon in Ireland phoned us up, they've not just extended the deadline, they're going to help figure out how to make a better setup that won't cost a fortune each month."

It's a Festivus miracle!

So I'd like to do my part to give back some blog love as I entreat those of you who also love reading or writing adblogs to donate now to keep the lights on at Adland. (I hear those Swedish winters are really damn dark, too!)

And thanks to all my adblogging friends for teaching me the ropes.

Egyptian blogger exposes herself for freedom (nudity)

We are used to seeing all kinds of nudity in the West. But in the Muslim world, it is much different. Even fairly secular countries censor nudes in art as well as advertising.

20-year-old Egyptian blogger Aliaa Magda Elmahdy wants to change that. Last month, she started a new Google blog, called "Nude Art" which features full-frontal nudes of herself and an unidentified male, as well as a cat and some artsy underwear and embrace shots.

They're not great art shots. They look like 1940s amateur pornography. But like that, what they do have is a certain authentic and defiant naïveté from someone who wants to own her own body in a culture than denies that freedom.  The most political of the pictures features self-censorship: “The yellow rectangles on my eyes, mouth and sex organ resemble the censoring of our knowledge, expression and sexuality,” she explained.

“I have the right to live freely in any place… I feel happy and self satisfied when I feel that I’m really free,” she said.

Nothing particularly shocking to jaded Western internet eyes. But in Egypt, where the post-Tahir atmosphere is one of increasingly conservative religious influence, this is practically treason.

The responses on the blog on Twitter (#nudephotorevolutionary) are in both English and Arabic. One negative comment is translated as “a desperate act of social political suicide by a young woman”. And another: “We are defending secularism from innuendos & then we get this #NudePhotoRevolutionary Stop shocking people to the point of repulsion.”

But the comments also show that there is a new generation, globally informed, who want more than an end to political oppression. They want total freedom. Said one English commenter:

"I'm very impressed and inspired by your courage. The revolution in Egypt needs to be a catalyst for greater freedom of expression. If somebody wants to wear a hijab they should be free to do so without facing discrimination but you must also be able to express yourself any way you choose without fear. It's your body and it's entirely up to you how you choose to express yourself."

Is this how a sexual revolution begins?

Link and Arabic translations via Almasri Ayoum
Tip via FEMEN

So much sexism, so little time

Yesterday, I stumbled upon the latest attempt to document the worldwide reality of women treated as sex objects in advertising.

It's a Flickr photostream by a user called woman_objectofdesire, and it's called "Sex Sells (ad sexism photoblog)".

It isn't original by far, but what amazes me is this photoblogger's energy. Between September 14 and today, woman_objectofdesire has posted 620 images. (Not to mention the other photostreams on the site!) They range from well-known PeTA and American Apparel smut to retro ads from "men's magazines", movie stills, and even book and album covers. (That Roxy Music album, IMHO, is one of their best!)

I even found an ad that provided a stereotype of Canadian men I wasn't previously aware of:

A worthwhile archive for anyone looking to research the topic of women's sexuality as ann advertising obsession. It's particularly interesting because it has so many obscure European and Asian examples I had never seen before. I just wish it were more focussed in its scope, sticking to the topic of ads. (Update: This linked set is much better.) There should be enough content in that alone to keep this blogger busy for many years to come!

Trust in Advertising

Nielsen's Global Online ‘Trust in Advertising’ study shows that consumer trust in admen is down, and faith in word-of-mouth is still on top:



Compare this to the same survey results from two years ago:




Bad news for strictly traditional advertising, great opportunity for plans that successfully integrate buzz and social media.

Branded corporate communications, however, also made considerable gains. But it's interesting to break this down regionally and compare it to how authoritarian you believe each of these cultures to be:

Brand websites, globally the most trusted form of advertiser-led advertising, hold the greatest sway in China (82 percent). Following China are Pakistan (81 percent) and Vietnam (80 percent). However, brand websites tend to be trusted least amongst Swedish (40 percent) and Israeli (45 percent) Internet consumers. In the US, 62 percent of Internet consumers said they trusted brand sponsorships, placing the United States 21st out of the 50 countries surveyed.

While brands hold great sway in China, it's interesting to note that yesterday the BBC reported a Chinese internet survey showing that prostitution is now considered to be the third most trustworthy "profession", placing sex workers behind only farmers and the clergy.

Admen were not mentioned.

Spam this Blog

Caught an item on The Australian this week that made me laugh. It's about a common phenomenon in social media, but I just liked the way it read. Here it is:

THE first time I noticed, it was on a news blog site, at the bottom of a story inviting reader comment. The story was about preventing swine flu in your house.

One of the responses read thus: "I live in Victoria so naturally I was worried about swine flu," said 45-year-old JJ, a mother of three from Balwyn.

"But my friend swears she can keep all types of flu at bay by eating just a teaspoon of Capilano honey each morning. It has to be Capilano, she reckons there's some secret ingredient. Even if it turns out to be baloney, it's worth giving it a try, for the kids' sake."

Trawling around the blogosphere a little longer, Wry Side came across a popular health magazine website, with this piece of reader advice from 16-year-old Jazzmeene, of Dee Why, NSW, on a story about problem skin.

"My friend Kortnee, she's 15, and, like, she told me a dob of Capilano honey, like, once a day, on pimples can, like, so do the trick. All those other things you buy from the chemist, they're just totally a waste of space. Has to be Capilano though. Apparently there's, like, some special ingredient."

A theme was emerging, so I Googled "Capilano honey" and came across this from Greg, a 35-year-old carpenter on a car maintenance website: "If you're having trouble getting your car started on wintry mornings, pour a little Capilano honey in where the oil normally goes. Works a treat. There's a special ingredient in it," he said.

What's going on? I know a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, but can a teaspoon of honey really be the answer to so many of life's little problems? Not really.

That's right: blogspam. It's everywhere. A particularly underhanded form of buzz marketing, it involves paying people to create alts that sneak product placements into comments and discussion groups.

It almost seems like too obvious an opportunity to ignore, when developing social media outreach plans for clients, but just like every kind of communication, there are good and bad ways to do it.

For example, bait and switch alts on Twitter are just annoying, and probably do little to build brand awareness (let alone sell anything). On the other hand, more subtle approaches like the homespun Capilano honey anecdotes can actually trick a general public who still think Lemon Fresh Joy kills mosquitoes.

Can you suggest any hilariously inappropriate examples of blogspam that you've seen lately? Feel free to lay it on thick below.

Space Junk

Back during Ottawa's winter transit strike, I thought it would be fun to set up a satirical Facebook Group documenting my fozen walks to work, the Transit Strike Fitness Plan. Managed to recruit 33 members among friends and family. We had some laughs, the busses came back, and I forgot about it.

Over a year ago, I was deep into my first attempt at blogging. Figuring I should add something useful to the blogosphere, I transcribed my great-great-grandfather's military memoirs into a 150-year-old blog. Kind of a neat idea, and I keep meaning to get back to it. Someday.

How much forgotten content have you abandoned on the Internet? My record is pretty bad. I've been writing web sites and various online stuff for clients since 1996. It's shocking how much is still out there.

I've even come up with my own term for it: "space junk". And just for fun, I submitted it to Urban Dictionary today:

Space Junk

Abandoned Facebook Groups, Blogs, and web sites that float meaninglessly through cyberspace. Named after the tons of Space Age detritus in orbit around the Earth.

"Find any good blogs about John Kerry?"

"Nothing but space junk"

Ironically enough, there are even blogs about forgotten blogs that have since been forgotten. Once great memes that have outlived their usefulness. Yesteryear's political discourse.

So, how much space junk have you launched into orbit around the world wide web? Fess up! Or tell me about some funny ones you've run across.

A portrait of the blogger as a young man

What prepared you for Web 2.0? I just took up this blog recently, but I've actually been preparing for it my whole life.

One of the biggest problems we face trying to get clients into social media is getting them to create their own content. "I know I should have a blog, but what would I write? How often would I have to do it? I don't have time!"

Most people are afraid of the blank page. Writers embrace it. We're the kind of people who never shut up about the latest insight or anecdote we've added to our magpie nest of a brain. Writing it down is just one more way to let it out. So here goes:

How do you become a natural writer? For me, it was good old pen-and-ink letters in high school. Nobody does it anymore, but regular correspondence is one of the best ways to get in the habit of writing even when you're not naturally inspired. I had one regular person who I wrote to, and who wrote back, weekly for years. It really got me in the rhythm even if it didn't improve my crabby handwriting.

In university, it wasn't the essays that refined my skills, it was the school paper. For about three years, I wrote concert and record reviews for the Queen's Journal. They were your typical sloppy, self-indulgent student journalism, but what could be more blog-like? Plus, concert passes gave me great cache to get dates and provided me with impressive stories to tell. The work also gave me a portfolio, which would serve as my pass into the working world after I dropped out.

In my early 20s, I eked out a living as a freelance Copywriter, paid by the column inch for advertorial to fill space between ads of "special features" for the Kingston Whig-Standard. Not exactly world-changing stuff, but I got to interview people from all walks of life, and tell their stories. Puff pieces. But it taught me insight.

At 25, I got my first agency Copywriting job. As a junior, I was tasked with lots of newsletters and brochures, as well as this new thing called a Web site. Even as I quickly progressed to "real" ad writing, as an Ottawa agency guy I was never able to leave long copy assignments behind.

So that's the professional writing story. What about social media? In 2001, at an agency that was on its was to imploding after the high tech bubble popped, I happened upon two web communities: Fark.com and Plastic.com. Both seemed like good sources of weird news and insights, so I started to lurk on them.

Fark.com is a news aggregator, but is better known for its comments sections. These are hardly learned discourses on the news of the day, but rather sophomoric collections of trolling, in-jokes, and abuse. At the same time, they formed a sense of community like the regulars at a bar. I went there to joke around, let off steam, and occasionally make a point. (I'm actually quoted twice in the Fark book.) Eventually, as the community grew, Fark's originator Drew Curtis started TotalFark.com, a subscription site-within-a-site. For five bucks a month, you can see all the links submitted (hundreds a day) and comment on the published ones before they become publicly available. But the real attraction there is TotalFark discussion, or "TFD", which is a pretty random discussion board where the smaller numbers have regained the sense of community that Fark had in its earlier days.

Fark is one of those sites that can be considered a real time-waster, but for me it has been great training. To keep up in an active thread, you have to think fast. If you get arrogant of short-sighted, people call you on it. And if you pay enough attention, it keeps you updated on all the geeky online trash talk and trends.

Plastic.com is another story. There, users submit positions on trending topics in mini-blog form, complete with primary and background links embedded. Then elite users vote the best submissions to the page. That was real blog training, with immediate rejection for poor or lazy submissions, and praise for good ones. I was able to make enough strong submissions and comments to gain the amount of "karma" points from other users that would let me be elite too.

Plastic went "out" for a period a few years ago, when founder Carl Steadman walked away from it suddenly, and even though it came back, I never really got back on it. I guess I just moved on. But it's still there, with the same logo, icons and arguments as ever.

And now I'm here. And on Twitter. And Facebook. My long journey has taught me to be quick, be relevant, and (sometimes) be funny, but most of all it's taught me to BE THERE.

If you're wondering how to get going in social media, my advice is simple: Start writing, and see what people think. There's even a convenient comment box below.