moar internets

I’m sure I’m not the only marketer, seo or otherwise out there talking about the 2008 presidential election. But I can’t let this discovery pass without saying something. Besides I need crap to blog about.

While perusing the various YouTube videos on the various political candidates I ran across this:

(sorry its IE 7)

Taking a closer look at the very lonely Google Ad.

Well I was quite surprised and simultaneously pleased that Mike Huckabee’s campaign had the smarts to bid on Mitt Romney’s name. I also like the tagline “searching for a conservative?” Great work Huckabee PPC campaign.

This little discovery sent me to Google to look up who was buying what keywords.

A search for “Mitt Romney” on Google brought up the same Huckabee ad. Mitt appears to be opting out of pay per click this election.

A search for “Mike Huckabee” on Google produced a sponsored link for Huckabee with a tagline that reads “Faith. Family. Freedom. Conservatives are choosing Huckabee”.

No one feels “John McCain” is worth ad spend apparently. There were 0 ads on a Google query. However John’s campaign is buying “Hillary Clinton”

Another interesting thing to note is that Norm Coleman – the REPUBLICAN senator from Minnesota is buying on “Hillary Clinton”. I wonder what his staff is hoping to achieve with that one.

“Rudi Giuliani” produced a very funny paid placement:

I personally would think the Rudi Giuliani camp would want to bury that one. Also noticeably absent were ads for any other candidates.

I wonder how much effect the Huckabee paid placements had in Iowa and will have in New Hampshire. I think its a smart use of funds. Even if the users don’t click through there is that subtle jab that Romney isn’t the conservative those conservatives are looking for.

I’m shopping for an uber new rig. Since I’ve only really owned laptops this is my first desktop – and I’m building from scratch. So I needed a keyboard and a mouse. I’ve never had to pick out a PC keyboard.

So after some searching I decided on the Razer Pro|Type Keyboard and the Razer Pro|Click V1.6 Mouse. Ain’t they lovely?

Anyways while visiting their website I noticed this link at the bottom of the page that reads, ” Getting pwnd too much? Download ‘Boot Camp for the Noob‘”.

This had “noob marketing department” all over it. By gamers for gamers? If you consider Tetris and Peggle h4rdc0R3 gaming, then perhaps…

Anyways I respect what they are trying to do – or at least what I think they are trying to do – create an epic viral document that gamers will pass to one another, brand their gaming mice at the same time and collect an awesome database of emails for future email marketing purposes.

BOOM HEADSHOT AMIRITE!!!???

Not quite. What self-respecting gamer is going to admit he or she is a noob? To Razer’s credit, there’s other info in this document about pro gaming – a topic a non-noob pwner might care about, but its encased in noobness. Noobness thats a barrier to pwnage.

So here’s my free and invaluable advice to you, Razer. Turn that guide to flamebait and reap the rewards of linkbait. Make that guide to boot camp a freebie link and watch as pwnerz everywhere mock the pwnt with it on gaming forums all over the world. Move all that info about pro gaming to a new guide and make them sign up for that. Put information in both documents about how awesome your products are and Voila – instant relevant inlinks and a database of qualified customers who will be more likely to use their real name.

P.S. I’m available for consulting!