[Foundation-l] advertising craigslist

George Herbert george.herbert at gmail.com
Tue Dec 15 18:58:11 UTC 2009


On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 9:55 AM, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> The text of the advert:
> "Craig of Craigslist urges you to support Wikipedia. Why?"
>
> In that context the separation between person and company is rather weak.

The name "Craig Newmark" is web-searchable but many people not in the
web industry won't connect the name instantly with Craigslist.

The point is to get attention.  Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist,
gets attention.  Craig Newmark, Joe Q Citizen, gets less attention.

We could do this exercise with everyone on the Advisory board - does
the uninvolved public recognize the name with, or without,
affiliations listed?  The only name with any chance of name
recognition WITHOUT affiliation on either current or prior advisory
board is Mitch Kapor, and that's likely limited to within the geek
community.

It does us no good at all to use what are effectively celebrity
endorsements if we can't provide enough context to disambiguate the
celebrity.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com



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