Jangro.com Social Media, Affiliate Marketing, etc. Heavy on the etc.

If you're new here, please subscribe to my RSS feed. And follow me on twitter. Thanks for visiting!

Here’s the latest t-shirt which comes courtesy of my friend Brian Hawkins at iBasis. They provide VOIP services, mostly b2b stuff. They also have a consumer product in the Pingo calling card. If you’re an affiliate marketer, check out their program and contact Brian. He’s a great guy and an experienced SEO-guy, and would surely have some good advice there. I believe their program is on Linkshare.

But let’s talk for a minute about marketing t-shirts. I don’t want to offend anybody, but this one has offended not only my fashion sense but my retinas. (The tag sticking up was an unintentional, but somewhat apt faux pas.) Can you see the pained look on my face?

What you cannot see is the front of the shirt which has the word “Hello” translated into about a dozen languages, all in various 80’s-era neon colors. With that, you can get the punch line on the back of the shirt.

But what’s the purpose of marketing t-shirts? They’re human billboards. But if you want to get any mileage out of me beyond the hours of midnight to 6am obscured by my bedsheets, it’s got to be something that I would actually want to wear in public.

I’m not a NASCAR driver with every square inch of my clothing and race car for sale. So all you’ve got is my need to wear *something*. So it you want me to wear your shirt in public, it’s got to be a little more fashionable than an “eat at joes” placard.

In contrast, I wear the DISQUS shirt in normal t-shirt rotation. This one will probably never see an encore performance except maybe to wipe up a spill.

So Brian, and whoever else is responsible for this shirt, please don’t take it personally. I offer this constructive criticism in hopes that corporate marketers everywhere can get their message out AND come up with a shirt that will actually be seen in the wild. Sorry, Pingo and, seriously, thanks Brian for the shirt.