Are You Buying This?

“In 2005 and 2006, MySpace was the king of the hill. That's in the past... Today, MySpace is still one of the most popular websites on the Internet (#11, according to Alexa, down from #6 in late 2007) but it's an aging giant…” (from an article by ebrage - for original. click here )

Remember Gloria Swanson as the aging beauty queen in “Sunset Blvd” desperately trying to hang on to her glory days?

Fast Forward. What if Gloria Swanson was now Julia Roberts in a modern remake? How about Scarlett Johanssen? Not aging after a generation of twenty years or so, but after only a few years worth of movies. Think that’s far fetched?

Things are changing, and I mean Fast. Not just Web Sites and Hollywood flavors of the week, but whole modes of doing business. And most of it is taking place on the Dub-yah. (not the old worn-out Dub-yah… you know, George). The other Dub-yah. The Internet.

Remember back? For a few years those long…long…(yawn)…ridiculously long ads containing essay-length casserole verbiage were the rage, so much so that certain ad gurus made BB bullseye huge profits showing copywriter wannabees how to make millions writing similar shtick. Perhaps the reasoning was to fool consumers into thinking that if the ad was long and involved then it must be intelligent and sincere, and therefore the product must be worth buying.

Now there’s a “new” strategy in town. (what else?) It has actually been around for a while but is only now starting to hit the mainstream consciousness in the form of lengthy tomes on bookstore shelves. It’s the Social Media Club. People get together on web sites like Facebook and Twitter and MySpace and Hi5 and pretend everyone is a neighbor on the other side of the fence. Everyone jabbers like old friends who aren’t really out to simply sell something. But eventually many are out to sell something.

Of course, one thing hasn’t changed in years and years. The Sellers. Remember the classic line? “But wait! There’s more! Now how much would you pay?...” The only real change in advertising is how many times a company can present that line in a fresh way, and that is the new challenge for Sellers in modern commerce. How to present that line to a consumer who is not only smarter and wiser now, thanks to the W, but has access to the same Internet resources as the Sellers?

This is a very interesting situation, especially in a very tough economy. Wise Buyers meet Savvy Sellers. What’s that theory about the irresistible force meeting an immovable object?

This morning (Dec. 12, 2009) according to one Google research tool, the top ten keyword searches revealed that people are looking for instant communication devices (eg. ipods & related accessories) …and also fashionable purses.