Sea Kittens????

[jeffnles1]

Oh come on now. Peta's "sea kitten" campain is aimed squarely at children and has nothing to do with search engines.

Perhaps you made that statement in jest and I hope that's the case. If so, please disregard the rest of this note.

If not, go to Google and search on "sea kittens" leaving in the quotes. As of this evening, there are 339,000 web links referencing "sea kittens" on the Internet and 129 news stories in media as far away as Australia, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Canada Free Press, and so on. Most of those newspaper and TV news articles had a link to their website.

I make a living in the interactive (Internet) marketing and PR business. If you want to believe what you just stated, please feel free to do so.

This has nothing to do wit children. It's all about marketing, publicity, buzz and search engine placement. It's messaging and propaganda pure and simple.

I play this game 5-6 days 60+ hours a week. It's my profession and I"m good at it. There are a few guys on FAOL who know who I am and what I do for a living and could probably vouch that I do have a pretty good idea what I'm talking about when it comes to this business. Because of my business, I can't really post any more of my resume than I already have.

This has nothing to do with children. They created the advertising campaign with a child like quality but the audience was the media, blogs and bulletin boards to get free publicity and copious links to their website so that their message could be distributed to a broad and deep audience base with no outlay of cash on their part in the form of buying search words. It's all about PR and top placement in search engines is one of today's best forms of free PR.

It has worked brilliantly too. It is honestly all about PR and search engine web placement. PETA is well known in the industry at being masters of this type of stunt.

Wow, back to the escapism of FAOL and fly fishing, this is too close to work.

Jeff

[Kerry Stratton]

Jeez, sorry. I still say it is about the kids. But I would guess they are smart at using what ever is at their disposal to gain some publicity. They aren't going to sway me or people like me but they can get to my kids. If you want to believe that the internet is more powerful at getting me to notice something over my kids coming home from school with this crap inside their books then believe away. In the mean time I will spend my efforts teaching my kids that peta is full of crap. And warning others that they are full of crap with any means available to me including discussing them on the internet. Stopping open discussion of thoughts and ideas because it causes to many hits on an internet search engine doesn't make much sense to me.

[RS1]

Jeez, sorry. I still say it is about the kids. But I would guess they are smart at using what ever is at their disposal to gain some publicity. They aren't going to sway me or people like me but they can get to my kids. If you want to believe that the internet is more powerful at getting me to notice something over my kids coming home from school with this crap inside their books then believe away. In the mean time I will spend my efforts teaching my kids that peta is full of crap. And warning others that they are full of crap with any means available to me including discussing them on the internet. Stopping open discussion of thoughts and ideas because it causes to many hits on an internet search engine doesn't make much sense to me.

I think Kerry hit the nail on the head. peta knows nothing will be done in today's world as far as what peta wants. Work on the kids today, because they'll be making the laws tomorrow. Who of us growing up in the 50's, 60's or 70's would have thought that an African American would become President of the United States in our lifetime. These people will sit by and bide their time. We can laugh at them all we want but it's not a joke, they have to be taken seriously. Yes they do some dumb arse things, but it's all free press. FWIW, a friend of mine told me that if any of you go to that website and see the form letter they have, as much as you want to, you can't delete it and put in want you want to. It may seem like you can, but it reverts back to their form letter with your name on it when you press send. They may be dumb, but they're not stupid.

[jeffnles1]

Kerry,
I never said it was a joke. It's VERY serious business. I also am not suggesting we stop talking about this as a threat to sport fishing. It's when we post links to their website and use their catch phrase over and over again when we are doing them a big favor and doing exactly what they want us to do. They are very good at this game.

All I was trying to do was make my friends here on FAOL aware of the game they are playing and how we're helping them win by posting links to their website and using their catch phrase so many times in our discussion.

We are not the ones they are trying to influence. On that point we are in violent agreement.

The mechanics of how search engines work and how buzz marketing techniques are applied is not a commonly known thing. Because of my job, I'm all too familiar with how it can be used, for both good and evil purposes.

This group is evil and what they are doing is spreading their venom and using folks like us to do their dirty work for them.

It is a very valid discussion and it is a very valid threat to more than just sport fishing. The overwhelming majority of advances in medicine that has so greatly improved the quality of our lives has been the direct result of testing those drugs on animals in labs. In addition to eliminating fishing and hunting, this group is trying to eliminate all forms of animal testing.

Drugs from antibiotics to cholesterol control to chemo treatments for cancer would not be with us. Are all forms of animal testing good or necessary? no, but some are. These bozos make no distinction to them it is all bad.

No, I do not think this is a joke at all. It is an evil use of the Internet to spread propaganda.

The way they get their message out to your children and the rest of us is via the Internet and that is done through having their website spiked with words and phrases that people will use to search for information. One may search for sport fishing sites and have their website be number one and thus the seed of their message is planted forever in that person's mind.

All I was suggesting was we not make their job easier.

Sorry I came down so hard. I thought that if people here were armed with the knowledge of what they were trying to do, we could frame the discussion in a way that did not play into their hands.

If I offended anyone, I honestly do apologize.

Jeff

[ducksterman]

Jeff , you did not offend me...we need to know all sides of this.

This will be too political... but the Obama folks optimize this ...they learned how to use the internet.

[dudley]

The Sea Kittens home page was just hacked with a banner ad from Omaha Steaks
By the time I went to post it .... it was gone

[super_fly]

Yes, click on any ad for peta that they have to pay for! They are very, very good at getting free exposure for themselves. They rely on shock value.

I will admit the new "banned" superbowl ad is pretty entertaining though.

And then there's this i found on teh interwebz

[Fontinalis]

Honestly I feel people have nothing better to do with their lives to come up with a slogan like sea kittens. Whats next maybe we should not hurt or kill fire ants or killer bee's or maybe cheerios feel pain. What is with people now adays. Don't we have enough problems in the world right now like, poverty, hunger, senior citizens needing help, teenagers and adults living in poverty that can't read or know how to act in society so maybe they can find a jon when one becomes available, or how about fighting against pollution and global warming. I could go on and on, it's just that I see a non sence group like PETA making waves to try and stop people from fishing and hunting. Go and do something worth fighting for.

[Nycflyangler]

Funny you should mention this. On a totally unrelated topic, during ww2 when the army came across a building infested with Nazis, instead of taking casualties storming the building, they'd just wheel up a field artillery piece and pump a few dozen rounds into it. Problem solved.

Just a totally unrelated topic.

Peta's national headquarters is(I think they are still there) located in Norfolk, Va. Every year there use to be a big fishing tournament in the area and they have a weigh-in to determine the winner--would you believe in front of the Peta building !!! The local radio stations get into it also by giving away hot dogs, free food, etc. A ton of people in the area do everything they can think of to aggrivate the crap out of that bunch.

George

[Nycflyangler]

What do you feel for them? It should be jealous because this was probably thought up by an advertising firm would got paid more than most us do combined.

Honestly I feel people have nothing better to do with their lives to come up with a slogan like sea kittens.