Tattoo On Forehead For $10,000 - The Marketers' Dilemma

Hello. You may have read recently of the US woman who put the permanent use of her forehead as advertising space up for auction on eBay.

That is, a company could tattoo (a permanent tattoo) onto her forehead if they were the highest bidder.

The online casino GoldenPalace.com won the auction and the woman, Kari Smith, now has GOLDENPALACE.COM tattooed on her forehead forever.

There are a few issues here:

1. GoldenPalace.com have been simply brilliant at keeping themselves in the public eye by their frequent purchases of items guaranteed to attract publicity. In this case, for just $10,000 they have received world-wide publicity for their online casino. A few weeks ago they purchased the current Pope's old VW car.

So from a marketing perspective I love their work.

2. Where do marketers draw the line? With marketers prepared to pay for such stunts, there will always be people prepared to overstep the boundaries of what most of us would consider 'normal' behaviour.

I have no doubt that in a year or 2 or 3 or 4 that Kari Smith will say that this was the biggest mistake of her life.

Should marketers bear some of the blame? It has been their enthusiasm for paying for such wacky stunts that has led to more and more people undertaking more extreme behaviour.

If it wasn't for the marketers then people like Kari Smith wouldn't do such things.

3. But then again............... who am I to judge? It's Kari Smith's body and she can do with it what she wants. So many people would disagree with her decision on so many levels but ultimately it's her choice.

The stupidest Idea Every

As a marketing firm we see stupid ideas.

Here's an example:

1. One of the sillier ideas I've seen was a business suggested by my brother. It couldn't, shouldn't and wouldn't work.

But.........that same business made him a fortune (so much for me knowing what I'm doing).

Which brings me back to the point - as marketers, maybe we shouldn't judge.

What do you think?

Brendon