"If you write something down, you remember it"...

First off- this article is about CAPTCHAs, and while everyone has encountered one, most people don't know they have a name. CAPTCHA stands for ""Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart" and was coined to describe those pesky type-in word combos required when you buy tickets or post a comment. The purpose of CAPTCHAs is to ensure that it is a real-life person using a site and not a computer posting spam.

Now that we are all on the same page, on to the interesting/exciting news: CAPTCHAs are now advertising space! Ad Age announced that a company is officially launching CAPTCHA ads today and Toyota is one of the first companies to jump on board with it.

How does it work? The CAPTCHA box will now be a small ad and instead of asking the user to type in random letters, they would type in "Toyota Moving Forward" if that's the text that appeared in the ad. Toyota also tested using CAPTCHAs of their car's features like "Star Safety System." The ideas and reasoning behind this are as follows:

1. "If you write something down, you'll remember it"- users will have to type the ad message and are more likely to remember the word or phrase

2. "Banner ads are easy to ignore"- as websites become increasingly cluttered with ads they become easier to ignore, and this is a way that people cannot ignore ads

3. Using "Untapped space where users are forced to spend time"- there are no ads in this area and people are required to see and use the CAPTCHA so it's a new space and more direct way to get people's attention online

I don't know why this is so intriguing and exciting to me, but I like this idea very much. Just when I think advertising has completely taken hold of the internet, something like this comes out and opens up more possibilities. It's like the discovery of a new continent or a new planet... just when we thought we had it charted we find something else! It's going to be really interesting to see how this works out for sites and advertisers; I wouldn't be surprised if in a short while, this became the norm on popular sites.

@Netflix vs. @Blockbuster

All the ad folks here at BG have been assigned a book report to present starting this week. On Thursday I will present my report on a book called "Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the new Global Neighborhoods" by Shel Israel, and in honor of that, I've decided to do a comparison of two Twitter accounts: Netflix and Blockbuster.

A combination of Twitterville and a C-Net News article titled "Netflix soars as Blockbuster plans bankruptcy" inspired me to take a glance at both of their Twitter accounts. After reading Twitterville, I have become very curious about the correlation between the current success of a company and the content/quality of their tweets and overall presence on Twitter. I am beginning to understand that it's no coincidence that Southwest Airlines and JetBlue are the current superstars of air travel and they have the best Twitter accounts in the industry. In most industries, the companies with the best Twitter accounts are the ones who are successful right now because it means they are understanding the modern landscape of technology and social media while engaging with their customers on a more personal level than ever before. 

These corporate giants that used to seem so far removed from individual customers can now personally interact through Twitter and it's changing the way people see these large companies. The question is- is this personal interaction changing the way customers see companies for the better? For Netflix, it's a yes. For Blockbuster, it's a serious no. Let's look at @Netflix and @Blockbuster and see if the interaction they have with their customers is indicative of their current situations:

Tweets from @Netflix cover a wide variety of topics that cover all things entertainment that engage followers and prompt a response. Almost every tweet ends in a question that asks followers to tell them their favorite movie, show, performance, song, thoughts, etc. Tweets are about box office results, current events (Fashion Week, VMAs, Emmys, film festivals), movie castings, and announcements. @Netflix rarely tweets about the actual company business of Netflix and instead chooses to focus on asserting itself as an authority for entertainment and movie industry news.

It is also clear that @Netflix has a true understanding of the Twitter community: they respond to personal tweets and add an engaging question to make it applicable to all their followers, they retweet, use hashtags and brilliantly incorporate current events and celebrity tweets. Examples:

• Toronto Int’l Film Festival buzz: The Town, Black Swan, 127 Hours & Never Let Me Go. Which are you most excited to see? #TIFF
  
• #dontarguejustacceptit: __________ is the greatest movie ever made.
  
• Sept. 1st - the first day of school at Hogwarts for Harry Potter & Friends! What house would you be sorted into?
  
• What film makes you want to pack your bags @TravelChannel? For us, it’s The Motorcycle Diaries.

Tweets from @Blockbuster are much simpler to explain- 99% of tweets are customer service responses to problems or complaints about service/availability. Although it is good to see Blockbuster trying to individually assist customers over Twitter, it makes it seem as if Blockbuster only has problems. Examples:

• @LivingontheBlock: Sorry for the delay. I talked with a buyer who said we're working with the studio to get Dexter and other titles in ASAP.
  
• @Pharrel1: Please make sure you're reporting them in your Queue so we can pull them for inspection.
  
• @indiestace: Yeah, it's very long wait due to the high demand. I don't have a date yet, sorry.
  

I think the Twitter accounts are indicative of the two companies as a whole- Netflix is modern and has a true understanding of what their customers are looking for in a movie rental service as well as the experience they are looking for from a company. Blockbuster has shown that they are unable to adapt to the current industry and aren't doing a great job impressing the few customers they have left. Because of this, Netflix is on its way up while Blockbuster is headed for bankruptcy.

The way a company interacts with customers and the overall tone and message of their Twitter account can really impact the way people view the company. Netflix is positive, informative, and entertaining, while Blockbuster only further highlights the misfortunes and difficulties their company is currently facing. The bottom line is that while Twitter can be used to enhance customer service, it is not a platform for addressing problems and apologizing; it is a tool to engage positively and personally with customers while keeping them informed and entertained. Netflix understands that, Blockbuster does not. Nice knowin' ya Blockbuster.

Things I am hating right now...

Two months ago while driving on the 5-North en route to Los Angeles, I noticed that there are an unusual number of billboards for "Lap Band Weight Loss" or "1-800-Get-Thin". They caught my attention just by their overwhelming quantity but also because the billboards are painfully tacky and tasteless. I spend most weekends in LA and it seemed like on each trip I noticed and more and more of these terrible billboards. They had taken over the freeways and cities and struck a nerve in me that made me angry every time I saw them. Here is the worst part- THEY HAVE MADE THEIR WAY TO SAN DIEGO. My beloved city is now littered with these awful things and I pass three of them in my 20-minute drive to work. I hate them. 

Here were some of my thoughts and questions:

1. "Holy crap, this must have cost a fortune... how can a medical procedure afford to advertise like this? Most major hospitals can't afford to advertise this ferociously, how is this Lap-Band Procedure making enough to spend this much?" (Things I've learned at BG: Good placements cost good money.)

2. "Goodness these billboards are ugly... if this group can spend so much on billboards, couldn't they spare a few dollars to make a billboard that isn't so basic, tacky, and unappealing?" (Things I've learned at BG: It is always worth it to make sure ads look outstanding.)

3. "There's no way this is legit... very few people can even qualify for a gastric-band procedure so it must be a scam if they can afford to advertise this much to everyone."

That third thought is what motivated me to do some research on this product and company (Things I've learned at BG: research is the key to everything). Here is a brief summary of my findings:

The Weight Loss Centers is a part of a medical group in Beverly Hills called Top Surgeons that is owned by a pair of brother doctors that were featured on Dr. 90201 a few years back. Only nowadays, both of them are no longer doctors because their California medical licenses have been revoked: one for lying about attending UC Irvine (because he was expelled from UCI for stealing exam papers) and the other for negligent practices for unsafe liposuction procedures. The LA Times revealed that a majority of the people involved in this "Lap-Band Miracle" are former doctors with revoked licenses.

The billboards claim that insurance will cover the procedure when, in reality, most insurances only cover gastric-band surgeries for individuals that qualify as morbidly obese on the BMI scale. For anyone who is not covered by insurance, the Top Surgeons company offers a Care Credit Card to put the bill for the procedure on... with an incredibly high interest rate. The company has been scamming people by charging them outrageous fees even if they don't go through with a procedure; there have been a tremendous volume of lawsuits against the company for fraudulent billing, breach of contract, and violating the state consumer protection law. Violating state consumer protection laws is when a business fails to tell you relevant information or misleads you in any way about their rates, return, or warranty.

I feel satisfied in discovering that I was right in all of my assumptions about these billboards- most importantly that this business is a scam. As satisfying as that is, it makes me hate these billboards even more. Not only is it luring desperate people into an serious medical procedure while scamming them out of money, it is this kind of garbage that gives advertising a bad name. So many advertisers like Bailey Gardiner create beautiful, effective and tasteful ads for good clients and it's infuriating to see companies like this use advertising to deceive people. I hope people start realizing how shady this Lap-Band Surgery is and how disreputable Top Surgeons group is so that they can go out of business and I never have to see their awful advertising ever again.