Immediate tease disclaimer: I blog about copyright-related issues. This is that.
Sex Toys for boys but not for girls?
How fair is that, in an advertising context, in the underground? Well, there was a law suit by Dame.com against the MTA. Apparently, the MTA's rules have or had no issue with advertisements targeting erectile dysfunctional males, but they drew the line at displaying inserts for ladies.
Among other things, Dame claimed:
“The MTA was disproportionately applying their anti sexually-oriented business clause to women’s pleasure advertisements, which is unconstitutional. They allowed erectile dysfunction advertisements to run while denying us…”
Legal blogger Jeff Greenbaum for the law firm Frankfurt Kurnit Klein and Selz PC offers legal analysis. It looks like the court may still be out (to coin a phrase) on whether MTA patrons will be treated to mind boggling illustrations of fun stuff for ladies anytime soon. There appear to be illustrations on the fkks post.
The Illogic of tracking-based advertising.
Upon reading Seth Zawila's legal blog for the UK-based law firm Robins Kaplan LLP about how the UK's supreme court blocks a multi-billion class action suit, this writer's mind wandered to a personal peeve.
"The claimants alleged that Google misused the data of millions of iPhone users under the DPA by tracking user internet usage even when users were assured in notices that they would be opted out of such tracking by default."
Apparently, to pass the smell test of the supreme court in the UK (and no doubt in other supereme courts) one has to show actual, provable financial harm, not merely annoyance or exposure to the risks of identity theft.
It seems to me, the wrong people were suing.
How often have you purchased a product online (happily, voluntarily, without clicking on anyone’s ad), only to be bombarded later with adverts for the exact same product? Where is the return on investment for whoever makes Origins Bar Pulls in paying AdNonsense to show ads to a client who has no further interest in buying more of what they already bought?
Once one has made a purchase, paid reminders are a waste of the producer’s budget. They can lawfully and appropriately email the customer directly.
Why not further personalize the obvious result of purchaser-stalking by posting “Thank you, Rowena Cherry, for buying 30 of these exact bar pulls. We hope you don’t return them! (As you did the Glide-Rites).”
It would have made more sense if Celeste had stalked me with ads in the footer of an online newsletter.
I wonder whether authors who pay Facebook and their like for pay per view targeted ads are wasting their marketing budget in similar fashion? Perhaps one should pay for click-throughs, and not for "impressions".
Does mentioning a couple of products make this writer an influencer? Highly doubtful! For a start, one is not being paid, and one receives no perquisites.
Bad??? Influencers:
An international ensemble cast at Squire Patton Boggs has
developed an 8-page .pdf about the influence of influencers, and on what
regulators are cracking down. Or should that be "down on what regulators are cracking"? That sounds too Yoda to be natural.
The lawyerly writers on influence peddling of the marketing kind are Marisol C. Clark, Daniel Carlton, Alan L. Fricl, Rosa Barcelo, Kyle R. Dull, Natasha Marie (none of whom to my knowledge have anything to do with anything seamy-/sex toy-/or subway-related other than a familiarity with what is in the regulators crosshairs). For businesses they dryly and most professionally recommend a comprehensive review of online advertising practices. (One agrees.)
Problems with regulators mostly result from misleading advertisements or claims, or from misleading by omission.
Writing as a questionable logomanic, this writer would say that almost ALL advertisements by their very nature meet the definition quoted by Squire Patton Boggs lawyers of causing the average consumer to take a transactional decision that they would not otherwise have taken.
Weaselly words and claims abound on television. So, too, does execrable grammar. More of that another time. A great deal of good would be done for
literacy and education if advertisements were required to be copy-edited by a
grammarian. Moreover, for the sake of critical thinking, rather than the
government suing advertisers, there ought to be community service spots parsing
some of the adverts. It would be far more amusing.
For instance, ranting a tad here, if a new Medicare Part C program offered crowns, caps, implants, bridges, deep root scaling and/or planing, they would surely say so.
Thus when a very attractive nonogenarian male croons at you about fillings, extractions and dentures, and so much more, you should realize that you are getting Amish level dental coverage free with your seductive-sounding plan.
On the other hand, some of these FRRRREEEEE programs being advertised with benefits varying by zip code appear to be very thinly veiled income redistribution program. Color me critical.
Critical thinking is a valuable defense against the dark arts of advertising.
Parting word:
Delightful word of the day: logorrhea
If you know someone who likes both words and poop jokes, pass it on.
All the best,
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