Best of 2008: Amusing, Creative and Just Plain Odd
Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang running an ad agency. How Internet marketing is like a ruptured disc. Bizarre yet real images on the web. Ads that never should have seen the light of an LCD screen.
What do all of these things have in common? They’re all here in the final best of funny, creative and just plain strange blog posts from the past year. So put on your headphones, make sure the boss isn’t nearby, and check these out.
The Peanuts gang strives dysfunctionally to design an agency holiday greeting card in this clever and outrageous spoof. Contains some off-color language and sexual references, so be careful watching this at work, but it’s very funny.
10 Ways Internet Marketing Is Like a Ruptured Disc by Conversation Marketing
Serial best-of contributor Ian Lurie explains, in his imitable fashion, the similarities between Internet marketing and his own unfortunate back injury, such as “if you ignore it, you’ll pee your pants in public, or something equally embarrassing” and “everyone thinks they have the solution, but very few do.” In another noteworthy post, Ian presciently warns readers about 11 Internet Marketing Trends To Ignore in 2009, such as “Vertical Search. I hate to kick that dead dog again, but it sucked in 2007, it sucked in 2008, and it’ll continue to suck wind in 2009.”
15 MORE Images You Won’t Believe Aren’t Photoshopped by Cracked.com
Joe Russo presents an amazing collection of unlikely but real images: giant bunnies, phallic icebergs, unfortunate translation errors, a trailer house skyscraper and more. Some of the images and language are a tad risqué, so be careful with this one at work.
Seven Things That Reality Could Borrow From The Internet by SEOmoz
Jane Copland lists several ways she’d like the offline world to be more like the online, such as automatic redirection of phone numbers, a mechanism to simplify street addresses, and “Unplugging and re-plugging-in anything that doesn’t work properly should immediately result in it working again.” In another notable post from SEOmoz, Rebecca Kelley catalogs 10 Different Types of Clients that may be recognizable to experienced SEO consultants, such as the Jessie Spano client (for Saved by the Bell fans): “A Jessie Spano Client is someone who initially is ‘so excited’ to work with you but ultimately gets overwhelmed by all the changes that you recommend and has a massive freakout from the stress of having to do a complete site overhaul.”
The Freakiest Ads of 2008, Final 4 by AdFreak
Exploding heads, zombie dads, shrinking heads, growing noses, pet slugs—you’ll find them all (if you really want to) in Tim Nudd’s collection of the most bizarre ads from last year.
Stupid marketing copy mistakes by iMedia Connection
Christopher Richards provides an amusing tour of common mistakes made when ad copy strays, under categories such as “sloppy copy” and “beyond cliché.” Example: “Another ad brags about a car that takes you ‘beyond your destination.’ Why would anyone want that? Surely it’s something of a problem. What do you have to do? Catch the bus back?”
The Steven Wright Guide to Content Marketing by Copyblogger
Brian Clark uses a series of one-liners from the inimitable comedian Steven Wright to illustrate his thesis that copy matters when writing blog posts, white papers, web copy or anything else you hope will be read and acted upon. Example: “’The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.’ Content marketing within the realm of social media is extremely powerful, but it does have a downside. Any time people are involved, there’s room for ugliness and stupidity.”
Top 21 Signs You Need a Break From SEO (2008 version) by Small Business Search Marketing
The prolific Matt McGee offers his annual list of signs you may be spending too much time in the SEO world, such as “While telling your son about your favorite childhood books, you wax poetic about the ‘Wikipedia Brown’ series. You never correct yourself. He doesn’t, either.” Geek humor at its best.
Poking Fun at Web 2.0 Naming Conventions: Pot Calling Kettle Black by The Officially Official Blog of Searchles
The folks at social bookmarking site Searchles have some fun with web 2.0 naming style, such as dropped e’s (Socializr, Yappd) and “give me an X” (Blinkx, Fixya).
Don McMillan’s classic instructional how-not-to video. If you haven’t seen it&mash;extremely funny. If you have, watch it again anyway. It’s still funny.
Geeks + alcohol + rap = something you just have to see. It defies my powers of description.
True geek humor. This site is a collection of real help desk tickets compiled over time by a technician who had the misfortune to work with an IT minion identified here only as “George.” So who is George? “George is, quite simply, the worst helpdesk technician ever. His grasp on the written word is shakier than a canoe full of epileptics. His knowledge of computers is thinner than a Vegas dancer’s chiffon underpants. He is, by all standards of intelligence, a rock. While we worked together, George was responsible for turning out some of the most mangled, garbled, and just plain screwed up help desk tickets ever before seen by mortal man.”
Tags: AdFreak, Brian Clark, Charlie Brown ad agency spoof, Conversation Marketing, CopyBlogger, Ian Lurie, Jane Copland, Matt McGee, SEOmoz
