While reading through this riveting search for the American launch date of Super Mario Brothers, my mind was bent around a single thought:

Why?

Why is the exact launch date something so important to us? Why do we value knowing the exact date upon which an iconic product became available to us? It appears that this should mean something profound about marketing’s dominance of our culture, that a marketing event – the launch date – should seem important at all. But I find no profound statements escaping my fingers, tapping on the keys, and appearing here on the Big Bad Blog. Just questions.

Why would an intelligent person – the author of the article – consider this research a good use of their time?

Why would they consider it a “sad” fact that the date cannot be determined with 100% accuracy?

And why do I agree with them?

Photo by Julien Mauve. Found at Smashing Picture
Webcomic is Nerf NOW!!

This New York Times article outlines how the store Target learns about (and tracks) your shopping habits, and uses this information to try to change them (encouraging you, naturally, to shop at Target more often).

The link I found to this article clearly indicated that I ought to find it all a bit creepy. And I wanted to. I wanted to believe that this showed how evil and manipulative corporations are. Instead, it’s all a bit fascinating.

It’s about statistics, trends, human behaviour and careful observation. Rather than thinking that Target is doing something awful, I just feel … fascinated.

I’m going to hell, aren’t I?

Photo by Theo Gosselin. Found at Illusion 360.
Webcomic is Sleep draw, by Anne.

As a blogger, I am torn about having people pitch things to me about the Big Bad Blog.

On one hand, they are often offering cash money or other intriguing things. I like cash and intrigue. Add in a day’s worth of blog where I don’t have to figure out what the hell to write, and it doesn’t seem so bad.

But you might have noticed that there seems to be a dearth of sponsored posts here. There’s a reason for that: the people who ask me to write about them. Observe.

Dear Blogger,

Off to a flying start, our pitcher is. The website is called Mr. Topp and the Big Bad Blog, for fuck’s sake. Can’t figure out my name, with all that?

I wanted to reach out to you, because my company, [redacted], is looking to partner with an exclusive group of bloggers, where they get paid to post video as content on their websites.

Ah, it is now abundantly clear why you are addressing me as “Dear Blogger”. It is evidently due to the exclusivity of the relationship between us. After all, when you are dealing with such a small group of bloggers, it’s easy to do things like reading the fucking name of the blog.

We are currently promoting a music video for a music artist, [redacted], and you can see how some of the blogs in our network decided to cover him: [redacted x3].

I can see why you have chosen me, though, excellent-pitch-man. For while my blog is an eclectic mix of a photoblog, parenting blog, fencing blog, technology blog and mostly completely-random-shit blog, the one common thread throughout all these elements is my dedication to rap videos. Whatever bizarre audience I have grown, they most certainly wish to view — and view my comments on — said video.

It becomes clear as to why I am part of a group of exclusive bloggers so small that you have time to read each and every blog name to which you are sending your pitch.

If you are interested, then we would compensate you to post his video (watch it on YouTube here: [redacted]) on your blog and write a short post about it. Please e-mail me back as soon as possible to let me know if you would like to partake in this opportunity.

Of course I am going to email you back! Who would not want to receive untold-amounts-of-compensation for posting content that they really quite honestly would never post under any other circumstances? Certainly the sort of blogger who has no ads on their site is likely to be such a person.

If this video doesn’t seem interesting to you, then you can sign up on our website: [redacted], to be notified of upcoming video opportunities like this one that are targeted towards the audience of your website. For now, we’re only hoping to work with a selected group of quality websites so I’d love it if you came on board and gave us a try.

No kidding, are they being selective. I feel extremely special to be included in such an exclusive group of bloggers. And am clearly jumping up and down with joy at the opportunity to sign up for more emails like this one, allowing me to be part of other extremely well targeted video campaigns.

In all seriousness, while I don’t intend to be a shill for the man, or whatever, every blogger dreams a little bit of all the free stuff they might receive. Hell, it can be tempting to turn this into a let’s-write-about-Maggie-all-the-time blog, just because I know that other mommy- and daddy-blogs end up getting a ton of free swag.

It’s tempting to go there.

But if you’re going to tempt me to the dark side, at least put some effort into it. I mean, come on. “Dear Blogger”? Sharing a rap video from YouTube?

A blind weasel with one nut could tell that it was a crap pitch. I can’t imagine a person who has a sufficiently low opinion of themselves that they might respond to something like this. I value myself, and if you want me to do something for you, you need to show me that you value me, too. Not bothering to look at my blog or learn my name is a pretty good sign that you don’t.

Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it?

For those interested, I did (of course) respond to the offer. How could I not? It’s such a good deal.

Dear Sir,

You appear to be offering cash money in return for a review of your YouTube video! I like this — the cash money, that is, not the YouTube video. Not that I don’t like the YouTube video, just that I haven’t watched it yet, other than to make sure that there was actually a [redacted] music video there.

I would, of course, be happy to review your video in return for some cash money, but have a few questions:

Have you actually bothered to read my site?

I ask because I don’t think that I have reviewed a music video on my website before, or talked about rap. Careful searching of the site may reveal otherwise, but I would be surprised and would not have approached the subject seriously.

Not that I wouldn’t treat the [redacted] video seriously. I would. You probably already know that I’m a well trained listener of music, having written a paper about Matthew Sweet, and scoring an “A” in the listening exam for the Popular Music course offered at my University. I’m sure the jump to video will not prove insurmountable.

Looking forward to hearing the details about your cash money, and your assurances that such cash money will be available in Pounds Sterling as I live some distance from your state of California.

Sincerely,
Blogger.

If they respond, you can bet that you’ll hear about it.

In the meantime, thank you, crappy marketer, for providing me with blog fodder. Other crappy marketers are, I suppose, welcome to do the same.

My inbox contained a new e-mail last week. This is not strange.

The e-mail was from Sky — my television and broadband provider. This is not strange, either. They often send me e-mails.

What was strange, though was the bit of marketing that was in the e-mail:

So, to answer Sky’s questions:

Do you know that feeling where you discover something special?

Absolutely. I have discovered many special things during my life. Seeing my daughter for the first time. Falling in love. Moving to London.

These things all invoke very different feelings, but there is a similarity between them. An excitement at the new, at staring at an unknown – an unknowable – future, and knowing that your life is about to be better for it.

Like when you first paused Live TV?

No. Not like that at all. VCRs were around when I was a child — I am uncertain if I have ever had a remote control lacking a pause button.

And is anything on TV actually live any more? We are under the impression that even sporting events had a short tape delay.

Or that sense of anticipation you felt when you discovered that the new series of your favourite show was coming in high definition?

No. Although I am geeky enough to occasionally be excited about a new series, I cannot even fathom being excited by news that it is going to be in HD.

I like HD, mind you, but it really isn’t something worth getting excited over.

That’s The Better Effect

My impression is that you have no idea what you’re talking about.

Dear Sky,

Please immediately fire your entire marketing department, and replace them with … anybody else, really. We cannot imagine that the current department’s replacements could be much worse.

Sincerely,
Mr. Topp

Top image was delivered by Sky to Mr. Topp’s e-mail. It is an actual marketing message to Sky customers.
Bottom image was found at this Tumblr. We have no idea who made it.