The Big Pitch... Part One-O

Nothing like 10 days of silence and some posts on weight loss to drive the traffic down to nil. But I do know what you want... Really I do...

And here it is...

The Big Scoop on how Pajamas Media is going to give advertisers orgasms! And it's big enough (the scoop... not the orgasm) that I'm breaking it into three seperate parts...

A businessman who had contacted Pajamas Media and requested an advertiser's kit in mid-November finally got - well - the following Power Point presentation in mid-January. He sent it to me because he couldn't believe what he'd received. Beyond the fact that Pajamas Media couldn't turn around a request for an advertiser's kit (which this sure as spoot ain't) in under 60 days, it seems - and this is incredible to me - that as of mid-January, 2006 the company still doesn't have a real advertiser's kit.

Note: For the uninitiated, an advertiser's kit is what those people who actually sell advertising for a living provide to those people who actually purchase advertising as part of their marketing efforts. Trying to sell advertising to the moderately sophisticated without said kit would be akin to attempt to play game of football without the football.

Here's Slide One:

What catches your eye first? How about Pajamas still using the housecoat/bathrobe logo instead of a pajamas logo.

Should go over well.

Slide Two:

Boy, this one's a hummer.

First of all, there really aren't any real business people involved in Pajamas Media... largely because business people wouldn't launch a business dependent on selling advertising without having a advertiser's kit ready. Nor would they send out a Power Point presentation (hilariously named "PMSalesGeneric011306"... which would certainly make just about any potential advertiser feel special) instead of an advertiser's kit. If you still doubt me on this, check out my archives under "Ragging On Roger" for posts on a variety of Pajamas Media's missteps since November 17, 2005.

Then there's the rather interesting claim that Pajamas Media's founders nailed Dan Rather. The founders? How about one of the founders... or is Roger Simon now claiming he was in on that whole episode (wouldn't surprise me if he did... it ain't like he's shy about claiming the credit for other folks' work)? Oh, and when we talk about that one particular founder that was actually involved in the Rather Thingy, let's remember that a whole slew of folks, including the boys at Powerline, various folks at Free Republic and commenters at a variety of sites provided at least as much to debunking Rather's TANG documents as Poodle Chaz.

Egomania strikes deep in the heartland...

And here's something else: Advertisers don't give a flying handshake whether you have "thought leading, tipping point audiences". What they do give a flying handshake about is whether you can deliver purchase decision makers. That Pajamas Media is chattering on about 'thought leading' and 'tipping point' type folks will simply indicate to those that control the advertising dollar that Pajamas Media hasn't got a clue. Period.

Slide Three:

Bullet Point One: I'll say it again... What advertisers desire are audiences of purchase decision makers. If "many advertisers" really wanted to sell to a "thought leading, opinion shaping audience" audience, you'd see commercials for Pampers, XBox and the Swiffer WetJet during Face The Nation... which would be on during weekday evenings rather than Sunday mornings.

Bullet Point Two: A free and frosty can of Fresca to the person that can translate that bit of mumbo-jumbo into plain English. And just what is a "psychographic scale"? And more to the point, why would an advertiser care?

Bullet Point Three: Crafted a vehicle? You've got to be kidding me. What you've done is cobble together a mediocre cross between a blog portal and a blog aggregator. And by the way, is this vehicle hand-crafted? By elves, perhaps?

Slide Four:

A note from the Department of Redundancy Department: Advertisers don't care about "thought leaders"... and probably would continue to not care about them even after it was explained to them what a "thought leader" was.

Slide Five:

Hum... This looks like the results of the surveys we did about a year ago. Note that there is no specific demographic information presented that would allow an advertiser to conclude that either site attracted purchasing decision makers for any range of products or product categories. That's because back then we didn't know what kind of demographic questions to ask. At least now I know what you're supposed to ask...

And here's something else: Attracting a member of a family which has a high income level is only meaningful if that member is the one making the decisions on what is bought and what is not. And here's some news, in most households that is one of the two adults present.. not both. If you are attracting the wrong member of the household, you aren't really offering advertisers anything exciting, are you? If Mom hates blogs and buys the kid's clothes, school supplies and Christmas presents while Dad is jerking off being an "opinion leader" at Roger Simon's site, guess who's NOT interested in Dad (or rogerlsimon.com)?

Comments

[GaijinBiker]

Bullet point two, translated:

"Our audience is rich and smart and reads blogs, but also steps away from the computer from time to time."

Now, where's my Fresca?

[squawkbox]

Damn! is that what a psychographic scale is? I was hoping it was something cool and sinister to do with evil zionist mind-control techniques.

[richard mcenroe]

Well, if you're going to start bringing facts into this, I'm not sure I want to play anymore. *g*

Remember what Mom always said, "Sure, it's fun, until someone puts a fact out."

[slarrow]

Dennis, just keep doing what you're doing. As it happens, my job has changed in the past month, requiring me to put together a business plan for this new company my organization is thinking of starting. I've found a comprehensive tutorial site that gives me the nuts and bolts of going into business. Between that site telling me what to do and your hilarious sendups of PJM showing me what not to do, I think I'm in good hands.

But I don't think I can promise you a cut.

[wxjames]

Why not advertise with Cereal Media ?
Your ad on every box.

[Sam]

First slide with text, bad grammar. If this were a technical presentation I'd overlook it, but these guys are selling advertisers a showplace, and there's dirt on the metaphorical floor. (Metaphloor?).

Furthermore, all the overblown, easily mocked language. Dzheeshe. Would you advertise in a magazine that talks like this? No, because nobody would read it.

"thought leading" -- yeah, I was out leading some thoughts around just last night.

"tipping point type audience" -- as opposed to 12 point type, I guess

"engaged with the blog" -- are they registered at Bed & Bathroom?

"psychographic" -- their audience draws charts of their personality measurements?

"We have crafted a vehicle" -- What, a rickshaw? A little red wagon? You could look for a more tired cliche, but why reinvent the wheel for this vehicle?

I'm very confident about the future of Pajamas Media.

[Alan S.]

Hilarious and atrocious. They seem to have mastered the spell-checker, but basic grammar remains utterly beyond them. With random capitalization, tense disagreement, shotgun punctuation, and empty embellishment, the whole mess reads like an eighth-grader desperately padding his essay the night before it's due.

"Mean average" is a perfect encapsulation. Padded to the point it becomes hollow.

[LouMinatti]

In a prior career, my title was "Media Buyer". If this is accurate it's highly pathetic. With all their money, couldn't PJM come up with $15k to put together a bitchin' printed media kit? Media buyers like to have something tangible in their hands. And don't they have a WebEX account? What the heck is going on?

I feel horrible for laughing at this because I have been a fan of LGF and Glenn and Roger for 3+ years. These guys are savvy at so many things, but this is a fiasco. How can this happen?

[Seth Finkelstein]

Great data, thanks.

Has anyone thought to point out that these people are saying their audience is a well-off elite, and nowhere near average Americans?

One might almost say Establishment :-).

[Pinko Punko]

DP, good to see you are still on your game. OMG, I have seen first year biology grad students with little or no creativity, effort or forethought SHIT out better PP than that. Ha ha.

Peace out, my crazed accountant!

[Guesst]

I bet they didn't even have a media kit until someone asked for one---thus the delay while they whipped one together.

I'm not surprised to see their readership and participants are snotty elitists*, as they are usually the ones to exhibit the least amount of class and common sense on the Internet.

Also, a revealing photo of Adrienne Barbeau would likely draw more viewers than a vibrating Hugh Hefner.

[Scott Lemieux]

"They seem to have mastered the spell-checker, but basic grammar remains utterly beyond them. With random capitalization, tense disagreement, shotgun punctuation, and empty embellishment, the whole mess reads like an eighth-grader desperately padding his essay the night before it's due."

Yeah, that's what amazed me too. 3 million bucks and they can't even afford a literate proofreader? The sentences read is if they were the result of 4 babelfish translations...

[sortapundit]

Translation of the Pajamas Media User Research:

We anonymously polled a cross-section of our readers. The results show that the average reader is college educated, earns around $105,000 per annum, drives a shiny red sports car and lives with his beautiful, sexually adventurous wife in their 8 bed, 4 bath ranch with convenient parking and private airstrip.

Y'know, because every Internet user is honest about the state of their life. I'm an underwear model, by the way. I have a 6-pack you could use to grate cheese.

[Michaelangelo]

Looks like those cheap adverts for deaf aids,the colours are shit.

[Fits]

Yeah, some embarassing stuff. Still think it's an Iowahawk parody we haven't caught onto yet.

[Rotwang]

I've bought media for 30 years, man and boy, and I would have to say this is precisely the sort of pitch that instantly crystallizes the notion that my client's money has better places to go.

Any ad pro willing to overlook the crap graphics, bad grammar and stunning inability to define their medium, mission and audience would be forced to bail out upon encountering bullshit coinages like "psychographic" (perhaps "psychopathic" was intended)and "mean average" (which I can only suppose is distinct from the "mean median average").

Not to mention -- "$105,000"? "$116,000"? My ass. That puts PM somewhere between "Foreign Affairs" and "The Robb Report." Pull the other one, Roger.

[Brian]

I think you're too hard on them. Their pitch looks as gobbledegooky and ful of pseudery as any advertising pitch. Crafted vehicles and all.

[Ad Exec]

A dancing bathrobe sure makes me want to sink my ad budget into PJ media.

This would be funny if it weren't so sad. By "sad" I mean "douchbaggy."

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA

[gorillagogo]

By using the mean average instead of the median, a handful of millionaires can skew the sample and give the impression that the typical reader makes over $100K. Anyone with a working knowledge of lies, damn lies and statistics has seen that game played a thousand times.

[The Liberal Avenger]

Could you please post the Michelle Malkin slide(s) if there is/are one?

[nova silverpill]

ah man, good stuff all around. i'm glad PJ Media exists (even if fleetingly), so I can experience the chronicle of this slow motion train wreck.

i need to score me some of that Swiffer WetJet.

[Ginger Yellow]

It's a good thing these grassroots conservative blogs are around keeping it real and sticking it to the liberal elite isn't it?

[Steve H.]

Notice how mature I'm being about this.

[JS Narins]

Hello, Dennis.

I could be convinced to believe RL Simon's numbers, but the bit about LGF having such smart, rich readers is just not believable.

You've read the comments.

It is simply too easy to fake readership numbers online. It is simply too easy to fake your survey answers when taking an online marketing survey. And the consequences of these lies (increased popularity, increased revenue, the snowball effects) are well known.

Anyone have access to LGF's access logs (e.g. Apache's "access_log" file) and want me to check them for real hits? Once I find one fake hit (obviously a robot), what will that do?

Maybe I should write a robot to fake 1000s of hits per day to LGF, to promote them as the real message of the right wing.

perl -e 'use LWP::RobotUA;my $a = ...

[tsmclain]

Imagine my surprise to not see Atlas Shrugged on that list of hot sites. Maybe those thrusting boob shots aren't working with thought leaders? Whoda thunk it.