A Mattress store airs a very offensive 9/11 commercial starring Jabba the Hutt.
Turns out making fun of 9/11 isn't the best way to sell products. Checkout the backlash they got on their review sites:
Apparently the owner had no knowledge of the video and that his daughter (daughter the hutt) was the one who posted it. Now this one video has absolutely ruined their business.
SEO Take Away: There is such a thing as bad publicity. A retail store is not the place to try out your edgy online content that offends a majority of people (duh). In a day and age where your stupidity can spread like herpes you should probably watch what you post. Shows like Family Guy and Tosh.0 can get away with making 9/11 comments because it's their job to invoke those kinds of feelings and emotions. Your job was to sell mattresses. You're killing me, Larry.
We ordered pizza at the office last week and the guy who delivered it said his brother was looking for a job doing SEO and Web Design. We had him come in for an interview last week and it was a bit strange. Maybe it was because the pizza wasn't very good and I was judging him harshly because of it.
He had a lot of grandiose ideas about the internet and business and seemed very excited about what he was talking about. He mentioned he paid $10,000 for a business course from Tai Lopez.
Tai Lopez? That name sounded really familiar to me and then I realized it was the guy who was talking about his Lambo in his garage in the non-stop Youtube preroll campaigns that were rammed so hard down my throat.
Tai Lopez had one of the largest Youtube advertising campaigns ever and he is annoying as hell. Just knowing that the guy I was interviewing for a job paid $10,000 for a bunch of rehashed business ideas packaged into 18 minute videos made me really uncomfortable.
I had to know what was in these videos so I got my hands on his 67 Steps series. The first couple videos taught me about how I shouldn't date my employees and how raising 10 million dollars is way better than raising 1 million dollars. He also told me to get an accountant and an office that is within 2 miles of my home, or find a place that will let me sleep in my office.
The fact is Tai Lopez is a genius. Whatever crap he's talking about doesn't matter. What matters is this guy can sell and he's made a lot of money preying on people's hopes and dreams which is totally fine in a douche sort of way.
So what does this have to do with SEO?
I've had a lot of experience with Youtube prerolls and advertising on Youtube. The average cost of how much you pay per view ranges between 10 cents to 50 cents on average. I don't know how much Tai Lopez invested in his campaign but it's got to be something ridiculous to get over 100,000,000 views. I know some of that was that it went viral but the trick is going to be trying to find that threshold you need to spend before you become viral regardless of how lame your product is. With the amount of force and capital, he was able to become very successful even with the crap he is trying to sell. Kind of interesting.
The lesson I can take from Tai is that if you can come up with a product that is incredibly ambiguous and generates enough curiosity, it doesn't matter how shitty your product is if you just can find enough investors to bankroll your massive advertising campaign.
Good press or bad press, you will go viral and possibly laugh all the way to the bank.
