Geek Habitat

Of all the reasons I’ve heard for getting a tattoo, this is one of the saddest: a 31-year-old selling permanently tattooed advertising on his body (for cheap)!

He should at least be pricing the advertisements the way stock photographers price their images — the wider the distribution, and/or the longer the duration of use, the higher the price. Lifetime, exclusive rights = $$BIG MOOLAH$$

You’d have to pay me more than a one-time fee of $510 before I’d sport a permanent tattoo anywhere on my body. He could make far more than that selling ads on a semi-popular website, and without the hassle and embarassment of tattoos! In fact, {Pssst!} if he were running Google AdSense on his website before CNN featured him, he’d already have earned enough to get those two ghastly things removed and make a deposit and first month’s rent on a new apartment! [His website]

And of all the markets to provide permanent advertising to, he chose pharma (pharmaceuticals — a shady area of Internet commerce) and a “save Martha” campaign. C’mon, at least “Save the Whales” or even “Free Kevin Mitnick” have more staying power than Martha’s white collar prison blip.

The only way this type of marketing would be remotely profitable is if it were employed by a tattoo junkie who (1) performed publicly, and thus gave his “ad properties” frequent exposure and (2) was willing to get his body literally covered in the ads, similar to the never-really-caught-on get a free car (wrapped with marketing messages) scheme.

Oh well, it takes all kinds. I’m a little more practical — for the right price, I’d wear a different t-shirt a day with someone’s ad message on it (within reason). My tagline to recruit fellow walking billboards? “Save instantly on clothing and laundry costs while earning money for college tuition!” Oops, wait, I think the U.S. military already uses that slogan… Damn, back to the drawing board!