You Mean People Don't WANT To Watch Our Commercials?

Wendy Davis writes a good Just an Online Minute today for Mediapost. She describes the online effort of the ONDCP in placing a bunch of old commercials on YouTube in an attempt to make them 'go viral.' Missing the point was Deep Focus CEO Ian Schafer:

The unpopularity of the PSAs shouldn't be surprising. Earlier this week, Ian Schafer, CEO of the agency Deep Focus, told OnlineMediaDaily that the spots weren't edgy enough to get far with YouTube users. "They're not especially jarring, since they're designed for television, so they're not the kind of things that work as viral video," he said. "They're very professionally produced, and there's nothing subversive about the descriptions, which give away exactly what the clips are."

Leave it to the agency folks to tell us that the problem is that things weren't "edgy" enough. How about the fact that they're commercials, simply dumped there to talk at YouTube users instead of engaging them? The problem is that advertisers still view the Internet as a broadcast medium, and they cluelessly scratch their heads over and over when people ignore their shouting in a medium that was designed for two-way communication. Edginess has nothing to do with it.

They picked LUKAS?!?!?!?!

I don't think I'll be buying any Supernova albums. I didn't watch last night, but got the update on the winner last night. No, I didn't watch every show, but I saw enough to know that Lukas Rossi is no better a lead singer than any of the emo freaks who line up outside Avalon right outside my office every Thursday night. Geez, the guy made every song sound like a bad imitation of Nine Inch Nails. Personally, I would have chosen Dilana. She was a great vocalist and thoroughly batshit crazy. Loved her.

So Lukas gets to join the world's most overrated drummer, the replacement second fiddle to Slash in Guns N' Roses, and the guy who replaced the guy who got crushed by the bus in Metallica. Nah, I don't think I'll be buying the record.

eCommerce Hell

Buy.com won't tell me where my two Plantronics headsets are...

Status: No delivery information is available for this tracking number.

...and iTunes won't let me buy the new Gin Blossoms record.

Purchase of this item is not currently available. The item is being modified. Please try again later.

I need the headsets because I've been on the phone so much lately that I've actually physically injured my ear. It hurts from hours upon hours of sitting on conference calls with the handset clamped to the side of my head.

I need the Gin Blossoms record because it's been at least 12 years since I bought their last one.

Fake MySpace Pages Making Waves Again

Danny at Beyond Madison Avenue wonders whether fake MySpace pages featuring ad icons are lame or not.

There's just one problem: Git the Crab has almost 90,000 friends attached to his MySpace page, so clearly he's doing something right.

I agree with BL Ochman. It's lame, lame, lame. Lame because it's fake, but also because it's broadcast thinking. Want advertisers to actually start listening and participating? They can't until they abandon this notion that every communications problem can be solved by lobbing a controlled message out there and continuing to ignore the market.