We just hired the one good-not-evil advertising agency that exists in the continental United States thanks to our favorite new good-not-evil search application, perplexity.ai.
Perplexity doesn’t track individual users in the traditional sense, nor do they sell ads…
…hold on. Never mind. They sell native ads, it turns out. At least according to our stoic Research Department. Who for some reason insist on smoking indoors and wearing grey velour lab coats…which are in total violation of our dress code. But we let it slide because they’re so good at their jobs. We think.
Native ads are the ads that pop up alongside whatever you’re looking at online. Which is likely pictures of your neighbor’s spouse in untoward positions like picking up a bag of groceries or changing the oil in a 1976 Pontiac Trans Am complete with “Screaming Chicken” hood decal.
Or, more than likely if bets are on, a stupid video of some wealthy Shanghainese’s fluffy yet undefinable chihuahua pet/dog-like creature getting a manicure. Not that we’re judging you via what you watch online (oh sweet Lord we totally are, forget we said that).
The Truth About Advertising
Anyway, these native ads exist in a half-hearted effort to disguise themselves as part of the story so you click on the seemingly juicy, unbiased niblet of tantalizing information to learn more, even if you have no intention of learning more because it’s an ad and ads don’t teach you anything. Which is why you end up at some obscure home furnishings website trying to sell you an octoganal green table lamp.
Oof, is this really what we’ve devolved to, ham fisted bait-and-switch advertising techniques that only yield results through errant clicking? Don’t answer that.
Oh great. “Yes,” says Bergmire, our new Director of Corporate Communications. Who we will likely fire soon given his penchant for inappropriate Slack behavior. Just last week our Cloud Architect sent a note on our general channel that she was stepping out for a doctor’s appointment, and Bergmire’s channel-wide response was, “Tell us how it goes.” Panama was literally frothing at the mouth for his complete tone deafness and/or ineptitude.
And we totally agree with Panama…although admittedly it’s like…omg…like, the whole company was hyperventilating with laughter for about 30 seconds so maybe we should keep him around. Okay, okay, no we shouldn’t. But before we fire him we’ll take him through a our empathy training program, You Of All People, which currently has a 29% success rate so we should probably work on that first. God there’s so many things to do around here…
Ahem. This “native” advertising tactic is the equivalent of being the dude at the bar who loiters, as if by happenstance, next to the bartender’s well, so when a woman walks up to order another Sav Blanc or dirty martini or Cosmopolitan he can feign innocent surprise at her ravish-ish-ness and strike up a seemingly innocent/complimentary conversation with her/at her as if destiny alone had predetermined their coupling at birth…but it turns out dude is there every night—in the same shirt even—because he live in the apartment upstairs.
Indeed, native advertising is a blight on humanity. Speaking of which, furthermore and not withstanding, it turns out the gang at Perplexity plans on launching a revenue-sharing program for publishers, so publishers of web content get a piece of the action when their unbiased, well-sourced bit o’ information gets featured in search results.
That’s great, altruistic news—we’re very confident that process won’t be corruptible.
Scoundrals, Hucksters, And Copious Amounts Of Cash
But you’re getting us off topic. Why do you always do that? We recently hired the one good-not-evil advertising agency in the continental United States, comprised exclusively of retired sewer workers, former ballistic missile silo combat crews, and nuns. Unfortunately for us they unionized right after we signed a 72-page contractual agreement written in what appeared to be Sanskrit, so God knows what we agreed to. Regardless, this unionization will surely both delay the publishing of what we hired them for and ensure it exceeds budget by 4572%. Drumrollllll they’re suppossed to build and market our Smokin’ Hot ‘n Sweaty Babes Of Climate Change swimsuit calendar!
Which is really the whole point of this rather long memorandum. Ah, the calendar, not the delays/budget overruns.
That’s right, we’re launching a campaign in conjunction with our new advertising/union compadres (they) entitled, “People Love Babes” because while we’re a good-not-evil climate tech company, we still have bills to pay and sweaty politician-palms to grease, and ya’ll love ogling babes even though you’d never admit it in front of your peers and/or colleagues, futher proving the one thing that holds true with humankind is that ogling babes = irresistable yet = shame which in the end = MASSIVE cash money revenues.
We mean, the math is there, so we’d be dumb NOT to do this.
Thus we’re making a sweet swimsuit calendar rife with hot, sweaty babes. Sure, act all put off now because people are around, but you know you’ll buy it. It’s fine, give yourself some grace.
Nobody’s Done This Before – Ever
Speaking of grace, in terms of what you like to ogle, never fear, we’re super progressive around here. That’s why Smokin’ Hot ‘n Sweaty Babes Of Climate Change features babes of all genders: binary, non-binary, gay, straight, trans, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, queer and questioning, intersex, asexual, agender, two-spirit +++++, and more. We literally don’t care. Not in a mean way, but in an honest, “How the hell would we know or care what you’re into?” type-way.
So this calendar is arguably the most inclusive, and longest, swimsuit calendar ever created. 452 pages, to be precise…not including the front and back cover which include bonus double-sided images of regular ol’ grocery store/department store/drug store calendar stuff, specifically an early morning misty glade, an alpine meadow brimming with purple poppies, a basset hound walking on the beach wearing sunglasses with the words “Low And Slow” emblazoned across the top, and an inspirational quote from the Dhali Lama superimposed over Van Gogh’s The Starry Night.
You know, so you can hang our calendar in your office or bedroom or whatnot without fear of reprisal because you can close it before you leave and hide the babes/your woeful shame. And maybe so some people buy it on accident at the point-of-purchase display by the register because they think it’s a normal cute boring calendar. Which, we realize, is as bait-and-switchy as native advertising but life’s rich pageant is rife with ironies so get over it already.
You can pre-order Smokin’ Hot ‘n Sweaty Babes Of Climate Change right here – it costs $222.19, and your receipt will say “Energy Audit For Tax Break” so you don’t upset the cultural apple cart in your house or apartment or yurt or whatever it is you live in.
You can also just email us your credit card information and we’ll punch it in for you—but if that’s the case your receipt will also include a bunch of food items, beer, and cheap wine from “Anchor Bar, 1047 Main St, Buffalo, NY” because we’ve always wanted to go there so we decided it’s the perfect service fee.
Wait. Our actuary Paul says we expect so many pre-orders that we doubt they’ll be any regular orders or the ability to find it at your local point-of-purchase display, so you should preorder today.
Or not. We’re not the boss of you. Always remember that.