Your Ad Here: Marketing in the age of desperate people

This story is not about David Jonathan Winkelman. It’s not about how Winkelman and his stepson tattooed the logo and call letters of their local radion station, KORB, on their foreheads. And it’s not about what led Winkelman & (step) Son to corporately brand themselves (the promise of money), their humiliation at discovering their error (the station’s pledge to pay out in six figures for this act of aggressive advertising was a hoax), or the fact that Winkelman unsuccessfully sued the station (which has since changed its call letters and its format, going from hard(ish) rock to adult contemporary) for pain, suffering, public scorn, and ridicule.

But while this story isn’t about any of that, it is a good prologue to this news story featured in CNNMoney.com: Turning houses into billboards.

Adzookie is a recently formed start-up that styles itself as a “full service mobile advertising company.” A quick glance at its home page would seem to bear this out; they offer free mobile advertising on phones and assundry handheld devices as part of some packaged deal. But then, in the lower right corner, you’ll see where they’re making an offer that sounds a lot like a Winkelman’s Regret: Adzookie will pay your monthly mortgage if you let them paint ads on your house.

“We’re looking for houses to paint,” the site explains. “In fact, paint is an understatement. We’re looking for homes to turn into billboards. In exchange, we’ll pay your mortgage every month for as long as your house remains painted.”

The company has already recieved over 1,000 applications, prompting Adzookie’s CEO, Romeo Mendoza, to offer this quip to CNNMOney: “It really blew my mind. I knew the economy was tough, but it’s sad to see how many homeowners are really struggling.”

Sad — but not prohibitively sad. Mendoza hasn’t thought better of his company’s program that takes advantage of the desperation (or, surely in some cases, greed) of homeowners struggling to stay in their houses and out of foreclosure. And for those in love with the free market, of course Mendoza shouldn’t think better of his plan. If Mendoza has paint and I have a need, then why shouldn’t we make an ad-covered house-baby.

…Or something.

(As someone a little skeptical of the free market, the above question was nine-tenths rhetorical.)

Mendoza’s budget for this program is all of $100,000 — and that’s including about $8,000 a pop for paint. Of those thousands of applicants, it’s pretty clear not everyone’s going to get to pretend that his house is Times Square.
Little of this, of course, matters to Adzookie: even if they only end up taking on two houses as clients, the attention and buzz they’ve garnered might make this program worth it.

For the other 9,998: start listening to your radio.