Environmentalism and Guilt-Based Marketing

I don't know if you've noticed, but there's been a trend among marketing campaigns lately to use environmentalism to guilt trip people into converting. Esurance uses it in their TV spots, and then there's Blackle, the search engine that claims to help save the environment. The logic is dubious at best. The site, run by Heap Media, claims that the black background saves energy because it takes more energy to display a white background on a monitor than it does to display a black background. There are varying opinions on this, and a lot of research shows that in fact, black backgrounds use more energy than white ones. My favorite part, though, is this quote from their about us page:

"We believe that there is value in the concept because even if the energy savings are small, they all add up. Secondly we feel that seeing Blackle every time we load our web browser reminds us that we need to keep taking small steps to save energy.

How can you help?

We encourage you to set Blackle as your home page. This way every time you load your Internet browser you will save a little bit of energy. Remember every bit counts! You will also be reminded about the need to save energy each time you see the Blackle page load."

Oh my! I'm sure they would love it if everyone set Blackle as their home page. They would save the environment and make tons of money off of AdWords advertisers at the same time! The whole concept made me laugh at first, but then, when I thought about it a little bit more, it made me kind of annoyed. I work hard to live an environmentally friendly lifestyle. It's something I'm very committed to. I don't need another company trying to make me feel guilty about the choices I make in order to make a little extra cash off of me. That's simply manipulative and frankly, pretty irritating. Blackle is like those kids that stand outside Whole Foods or Trader Joe's and ask you every single day if you have, "a minute to save the environment." I always feel like responding, "Sorry, I don't, I have to go spill some oil and club a few baby seals."

I don't mind a company advertising the environmentally friendly choices that they make. It's a legitimate form of publicity. But I don't need another guilt trip.

Will Everybody Just Calm Down and Stop Suing Google?

Apparently it has become the latest fashion to sue Google. First Viacom sues Google for allowing their copyrighted content to be posted on YouTube, and now American Airlines is suing Google for allowing competitors to bid on their trademarked name in AdWords. So, let me just remind all of the major corporations out there (because I'm sure so many of them are reading my blog), please, just calm down.
Google's not doing anything particularly new here. How many TV ads have you seen that proclaim that one brand is better than another? AdWords does not allow you to use trademarked terms in your ads (you know you've tried it), so frankly, American Airlines has no case and they know it. Possibly they think that Google will give in and stop allowing bids on trademarked terms, but given the amount of revenue that these ads generate, I sincerely doubt it. American Airlines should go take a Vicodin and calm down. They're just wasting their money.

Update Sept 10th: Google is now being sued by the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission for selling search results.

Wikiscanner: How Sneaky Can You Get?

So everyone has been going on about the new Wikipedia IP scanner, which allows you to search by IP address across Wikipedia to find out what edits have been made by someone on that network. Now, it is extremely cool and interesting to be able to find out who is laundering their Wikipedia articles or dirtying up their competition's articles, but one thing that I haven't seen anyone comment on is the ability that this tool provides to look up a company's IP address just by typing in the name. Correct me if I'm wrong about this, but I haven't seen another tool that provides that capability. It's easy enough to find out who an IP address belongs to once you have it, but the other way around has, up until now, been a bit harder. The Wikiscanner makes it incredibly easy!

Starting My First Search Marketing Blog

So here goes. I'm no industry expert, but I've picked up a few tips here and there and, what is perhaps more important for a blogger, I'm an incredibly opinionated person. So be sure to check back here for my tips, tricks, and opinions about the Search Marketing Industry.
Don't expect me to be too revealing. A girl has to have a few secrets! Besides, I'm not legally allowed to share the strategies developed for and by the company I work for. That doesn't mean I won't be posting anything worth reading, though!