Affiliate marketing just reached a whole new level of absurdity.

Yes, it finally happened: Someone made a website that pays you to come click on their affiliate referral links before you make a purchase online. So while most advertising takes up space on websites with some legitimate purpose (such as actual content or networking or porn or whatever) in the hopes of reminding people who came to that site for its content or networking or porn that they really, really want to buy something, this site asks people who already know that they want to buy something to come to them for the express purpose of getting their grubby little hands on some of the money that the company they're about to make a purchase from spends trying to track down customers.

Apparently this site BigCrumbs has been around since 2005, but I just heard about them last week through a promotional link in an invoice I received for a recent eBay purchase. Diagram that BigCrumbs uses to explains their workings below.

What I can't believe is that retailers are actually willing to pay for these sales. Don't you people realize these customers were going to buy your crap anyway???

This whole concept is simultaneously revolting and fascinating. I mean, wouldn't this money be better spent offering all customers lower prices or investing in research to make products more sophisticated or more environmentally sustainable?

But you know what? I signed up anyway, 'cause I have to do important research into how this actually works, GIANT Microbes-style. So if you're interested, use one of these here referral links and kick a little $$$ my way, plskthx!

If you're trying to open a new business in NYC, you've pretty much spent all your startup capital on your lease, so you'd better plan to do your marketing up low-budge style. For inspiration on how to combine low-budget local marketing and utter hilarity sure to pique your demographic's interest (provided they have, you know, a sense of humor and an interest in the contradictory), observe the brilliant campaign of a new restaurant opening in my neighborhood.

I've noticed some folks working in the storefront on the northeast corner of 100th Street and Lexington Avenue over the past few weeks without much curiosity, until last week, when they raised the hilarious banner pictured above, reading "WWW.NAMEOURPLACE.COM WIN $1,000."

But I didn't actually remember to check out NAMEOURPLACE.COM (despite the gratuitous caps lock) until I got the intriguing and curiously designed postcard pictured at right a few days later. In case you're a human who can't read the image, it says:

!!NAME OUR PLACE!!

A newborn burger bar & vegetarian place is opening on the corner of 100th St. & Lexington Ave. We want you to come up with the name and we will give you $1,000 Dollars.

WWW.NAMEOURPLACE.COM

Well. A burger bar and a vegetarian place, all in one restaurant! I had to see what that was about, so I strolled on over to nameourplace.com to find out more. Alas, aside from the same winning color scheme you see on the postcard, delightful money clip art, and the headline "HOLY HAMBURGER!" the website provides only more unanswered questions.

Do the restaurant's owners equate being "A new Burger Place and eco-friendly brand" with being vegetarian? Do they really think an identity that's "a high concept over cliché" can be had for a measly $1K? What is a "Burger Continental"? Burgers for breakfast? And who chose the Winnie-the-Pooh capitalization style as part of this high concept brand?

Anyway, I must say that for all my cheekiness, this marketing campaign has me hooked. I'm definitely going to check this place out when it opens—that is, if they at least offer veggie burgers as part of their "eco-friendly brand." I mean, how awesome does this dining experience sound:

Enjoy the experience of old fashion style, the warm colors and the lovely music in spanish harlem. You can sit on the bar and refresh yourself with a pint of beer while watching your burgers grilling or just sit in a table and sip your milk shake away. Try to be as creative as you can.

I mean, except for that last sentence. I think they're referring to the naming contest there, not your milkshake-sippin' style.

Don't worry, your favorite girl who rakes in about $0.005/month from her own AdSense script isn't about to get all hypocritically anti-advertising like last time (although I could probably split hairs about the difference between overwhelming outdoor ads and text ads so hard to notice they (sigh!) never get clicked if you really wanted me to).

I just happen to think that light criticism (brought to you by The Anti-Advertising Agency and Graffiti Research Lab, and brought to me via Stay Free Daily) makes for some mighty fine street art, and I hope I get to see it live and in person some fine night. We'll leave it at that:

Embedded video doesn't seem to work in RSS, so you'll have to visit the actual post.

Somewhere a choir of ad agency execs is signing hallelujah. It's the digg of ads.

[via advertising/design goodness]

I'm finally reading John Battelle's The Search, and I just got to the part that describes the state of search before Bill Gross's epiphany about contextual advertising.

Search became a problem of sorts: executives knew that when someone searched the Web, chances were he'd leave the portal if he found something that matched his intent. Hence, it wasn't in the portals' interest to improve search results. Sites that had built their audience and traffic on search—AltaVista, Yahoo, Excite, Netscape—shifted strategy and began to act like media properties jealous of their audience.

Which reminded me of this great headline on TechDirt awhile back: Newspapers Should Ask Google If Linking To Other Sites Is A Good Business. From that post:

And while some may see links as offering free publicity to another site, it's should be viewed as a way of making the originating site that much more useful to readers.

In other words, if people leave your site happy, they're more likely to come back than if they leave it frustrated. Satisfied out-clicks = return visitors. And it's not like the people reading your article don't know that other sources of information exist online, not to mention how to easily locate them. The gig's up, folks.

This old "Who Needs a Computer Anyway?" student brochure advertising late '80s Macs is hilariously illustrated with college stereotypes (who naturally all need one model of Macintosh or another) by Simpson's creator Matt Groening. I love the (incredibly un-PC) caption for The Schizoid:

Traits: Doesn't recognize nametag sewn in own underwear.

Warning: This could be you or you or you.

[via 92Y blog]

When trying to enjoy a tasty snack of Wheat Thins and horseradish chive hummus, be forewarned that reading the Wheat Thins box could destroy your appetite. First, I discovered that Wheat Thins contain the demon's sweetener, high-fructose corn syrup, which I try so hard to avoid.

Then, as I debated the virtues of finishing *just this box* before making an avowed conversion to HFCS-less Triscuits, I discovered something almost as disturbing: Despite Nabisco's cost-reducing HFCS usage, they seemingly can't afford a proofreader on their package design team.

For those of you who can't read the image (but who are not spam bots), the first blurb reads:

For a sweet/salty combination, Honey Wheat Thins is a perfect choice because of it's slightly sweet honey taste

Now personally, I think that saying "Honey Wheat Thins is a perfect choice" would be like saying "jelly beans is a tasty treat," but I can accept the possibility that Nabisco might see their products more…conceptually..than I do and that they might—I hope—be referring to one box of Honey Wheat Thins as a perfect choice rather than, say, a handful thereof.

Then I read why Honey Wheat Thins…um…are…such a perfect choice—and still, I tried not to judge. Maybe the Nabisco package team was in a hurry. Maybe they were quickly reading aloud to themselves and heard "its" rather than "it's." What with my obsessive multitasking, high-speed typing, and constant utilization of multiple immediate communication channels, I must admit I've made it's/its, you're/your, and even we're/were slips before. Just not, um, in print on the packaging of a multi-national product.

But still I could forgive the Nabisco team. They're probably up against some tough deadlines, I thought. Until I read the second blurb:

Ranch Wheat Thins offers zesty flavor like a chip because it's it's made with delicious ranch seasoning.

Really, Nabisco? Really??? You didn't catch "because it's it's"? Your copywriter finally chose the correct "it's"—but no one noticed that you have the same word two times in a row on your package?

Reason #587 to not let your child major in English: He or she will be unable to eat because of poorly proofread food packaging.