From the Bench

WHERE’S THE MONKEY?

Advertising is the lifeblood of any enterprise. Nowhere is that more true than in the promotion of an Internet website. The competition for attention is fierce. It appears that everyone with half a mind to establish a website is doing it.

With millions of websites out there in space, how do you get people to take time to look at YOU? It is a puzzlement, as the King in "The King and I" said.

Many great American entrepreneurs have commented on advertising. There’s the story about William Wrigley, the Chicago chewing-gum magnate. Someone once asked him, "Mr. Wrigley, why do you advertise? You already have over ninety percent of the market?"

As the story goes, a plane was passing overhead, and Wrigley pointed to it. "See that plane? If you removed the fuel, it would crash. Advertising is the fuel that keeps us in the air."

John Wannamaker, the New York City retailing giant of a century ago, had this to say about advertising. "I know that half of the money is wasted, but I don’t know WHICH half. Apparently, he didn’t stop advertising.

So, back to the original question. As one of millions of websites out there, how do you get noticed? We have two potential audiences to reach, and they are quite diverse.

Our Internet newspaper, neganews.com, is already targeting that group who are on the Internet and who have been reading our columns by email. Along with the usual emails on weight loss, work at home, sexual opportunities, etc., they will get the notices of: "HARK! Go to neganews.com for Dave’s latest column." Hopefully, the message won’t get lost in the shuffle.

The other audience is the locals, who we want to target for hometown news. There is much work to be done. The Internet is still sparse in the hinterlands. Many of us are still struggling to operate our vcr’s. A good sprinkling, however, are Internet savvy, and we will, in time, reach the others through them.

As an advertising attention-getter, we decided to start out by adorning our column, "From the Bench", with an impressive graphic. (Ego had nothing to do with it.)

The family reaction has been mixed, and sometimes hurtful.

"You’re not going to leave that," the wife insisted. "You look like an idiot."

"Who IS that?" one of the granddaughters asked.

"Thank goodness," the wife responded. "Maybe most people won’t recognize you."

"I’m glad you cropped out the organ and the monkey with the collection can," the son commented. "That would have been embarrassing."

"You COULD have a "Name the Clown" contest," suggested another, who I will not identify.

Only one member of the family, obviously the most perceptive and intelligent, got it. Molly, the eight-year-old granddaughter, said, "I think it’s cool."

That did it! The graphic stays! But with the cost of this enterprise rising daily, we may just put the monkey with the collection can back in.

This page has been accessed times since Monday, June 24, 2002