I just did a search for ‘showers pass jacket’ and I saw an ad for REI. The ad is interesting because when you click on the text “rated”, it takes you to a Google Product Search rating page for the merchant. If you keep clicking, you will more than likely wind up on the retailer’s page, free of charge. Heck, in some cases, the folks like Bizrate.com may get some money out of this. I clicked through from the Google SERP to the GPS ratings page to a review on Bizrate all the way through to REI’s homepage (via a PPC link on Bizrate).

It’s an interesting move on Google’s part. Maybe draw some more eyes towards paid search ads, maybe draw more attention to Google Product Search, maybe give the user a sense of trust for the retailer being rated (and a sense of trust with Google), maybe to help keep the advertisers honest, maybe a mix of everything.

Should be fun to see where this goes and how various advertisers react.

Update: I just read the post on the Inside AdWords (maybe I should have came here first… ha!) These are officially called seller rating extensions. And wow – what a plan this sounds like. From Google:

If your online store is rated in Google Product Search, you have 4 or more stars, and you have at least 30 reviews, you’ll automatically get seller ratings with your ads. What’s more, you’ll only be charged if someone clicks on the headline of your ad – clicks on the review link are free.

All e-tailers, start your engines… this could be fun! The ads are rolling out over the next 24 hours. This is another way to owning more SERP real estate. I predict an onslaught of accounts being open with Bizrate (and other various rating sites that GPS crawls). I wonder if you can opt out of this (for whatever reason).

Having heard all the buzz about Zappos for the last 4 years and seeing all the PR that the company was getting, I knew that it was a book that I was going to pick it up. During my several years working at Backcountry.com, I remember folks coming to my desk telling me that they had seen Zappos ads running on keywords that we were bidding on. Their ads read something like “Free Overnight Shipping, free return shipping”. I’ll be honest, it’s tough to compete with that! I had to know the deal behind this company in Las Vegas.

The book is organized into three sections and reads very well. The first hundred pages of the book were very entertaining. Tony told a lot of stories about his businesses when he was young, starting with a worm farm, progressing into a button mail-order company. Some of the companies did well, others not so much, but it was fun to read through all of his ventures and what he learned from each one. Hsieh attended Harvard, and had some great stories about his ventures in college as well, which included running a pizzeria in the bottom of his dorm.

Tony was always taking risks, from buying supplies for the worm farm from his allowance to throwing down a few thousand dollars to buy a pizza oven. When Tony got out of college, he took a job with Oracle, only to take another big risk 4 months later by leaving and starting up a web-design company with his college buddy and roommate Sanjay, who also worked at Oracle. Push comes to shove, they focused their efforts on an idea they called LinkExchange, which they built up and sold to Microsoft for $265MM.

While LinkExchange was growing, he realized that he was hiring people who were smart and passionate, but not passionate for the right reasons. I would say this is a turning point in the book where he began to realize that creating a company culture was underrated and would pay off in so many ways in the long-run.

I won’t give a play by play for the rest of the book, but Tony writes a great story of Zappos going through their ups and downs from when they were a small company in San Francisco to the time they sold the company in 2009 to Amazon. He tells us everything he has learned in his 10 years at Zappos; everything from creating a company culture, to the mistakes he’s made, and how happiness plays such a key role in the way he runs his business.

The book flows nicely all the way through the Amazon/Zappos deal in the summer of 2009, which I remember distinctly. When working at Backcountry.com, the day they announced this deal, our whole office was buzzing. Everybody in the office that day had their eyes glued to various news websites and blogs, reading the buzz that this acquisition was producing. I would be lying if I said we all weren’t a little envious of Zappos’ tactics.

For anyone out there working at a retail or ecommerce store, I highly recommend this book. On top of it being a fun read, I took away a lot of wisdom. Heck, you don’t need to work in retail to enjoy this book. If you’re interested in wondering how to bring happiness to your employees, to your customers, to yourself, and to the world, pick up the book. I’d put this book up there with ‘Good to Great’ and ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People.’ The book has changed my outlook on a lot of subjects, and I hope to make changes to the way I run my business moving forward based on the stories and lessons found here.

Thanks for writing this, Tony! It was a tough book to put down.

For more info, check out these links:

Zappos home page

‘Delivering Happiness’ website

How Twitter Can Make You A Better (and Happier) Person

I’ve run down this road a few times when I lived in Park City… probably not the most pedestrian friendly road, but I probably wouldn’t go down this road walking from A to B in her case because a) there is free public transportation in Park City and b) while those pictures posted in the article above are nice, there are massive snowbanks on the side of the road in January in Park City… you can bet that dirt path wasn’t there when she got struck.

If she was from Park City, she should have known better (I’ve read other news reports that she is a resident there).

This reminds me of The Office episode where Michael drives his rental car into the lake because the GPS said for him to turn right (also the episode where the employees receive blackberries).

I guess I’ll make it a Memorial Day adventure (happy Memorial Day by the way!) to find “dangerous” directions on Google Maps in the city of Atlanta. If I am lucky, I’ll get hit and then try to sue Google.

Not really sure who is at fault, but I thought this article was funny.

Google Product Search, formally known as “Froogle”, is Google’s comparison shopping engine, where users are able to browse products for sale listed by retailers. Like Google SERPs, the Google Product Search results pages are aesthetically pleasing and clean, offer the user extended options to filter and sort your results, and are monetized only by the sponsored links on the top and right of the page. Over the last few years of working on various Google Product Search accounts with about 10 different companies, I can say that Google Product Search is becoming more and more popular with the user, and continues its trend of eating away at traditional CSE market share, such as Nextag, Shopping.com:

As a marketer, there are many reasons why you should be aware of Google Product Search, particularly if you or your clients are part of the retail vertical. Like many products of Google, Google Product Search has a lot of things going for it from a marketing stand-point. Behind search engine marketing and search engine optimization, it’s probably one of the best ways to get visibility on the first search engine result page (and we all know how important that 1^st page listing is). Having said that, let me dive in to the ten reasons why Google Product Search is great for retailers looking to take a huge step towards increasing their store’s revenue:

10. Google Product Search is “spam-free”.

Several years ago, it was way too easy to submit an affiliate store to Google Product Search. Heck, I’ll admit that I was one of those folks making a storefront based off a data feed I received from several retailer’s affiliate programs. Back then, Google didn’t keep a close eye on Google Product Search. Some stores were submitting their feeds twice for added visibility, affiliates were crawling around looking for an extra buck, and Google Product Search didn’t have any account managers on the product to help remove these poor listings. There was a “report violation” button to call out these “spammers”, but it was rare that these violations were ever taken care of. Google Product Search up until 2008 was like the wild west… laws didn’t apply to anyone.

Fast forward to 2010, and you’ll see a completely different Google Product Search. First off, you won’t find an affiliate storefront listed on Google Product Search any more. Most drop-shippers are no longer there either (also not allowed to list their products). Google has increased their headcount within the GPS department, giving bigger retailers an account manager (much like the Google Adwords program), and has become more strict on who can list their products. A direct example of this includes Google asking retailers who wish to be listed on Google Product Search to verify their store by installing a snippet of code on their homepage, confirming they’re the URL associated with their account number given to them when they signed up for the program.

9. Google Product Search is relatively unnoticed.

What I mean by this is that while GPS has been around for 7+ years, I am still shocked to find legitimate retailers who don’t list their products here. I was on Facebook several days ago when an ad was served to me by an outdoor gear retailer. I was dumbstruck to find out that this retailer was savvy enough to run ads on Facebook (which are served on a CPC basis, and for retailers, have a relatively poor conversation rate), yet didn’t have any Google Product Search listings. Many retailers are still in the dark about Google Product Search, meaning there is still time to get your foot in the door before your competition does. Learning Google Product Search yourself, or hiring a team that already has the know-how is definitely worth your effort if you haven’t listed your products here yet.

8. Google Product Search is focused on the interest of the user.

Google is not afraid to put the user first, and their company second. After all, it is how the company has grown to its immense size over the last decade. Taken from Google’s corporate information page, you’ll see that Google’s #1 philosiphy is to ‘focus on the user and all else will follow’:

Since the beginning, we’ve focused on providing the best user experience possible. Whether we’re designing a new Internet browser or a new tweak to the look of the homepage, we take great care to ensure that they will ultimately serve you, rather than our own internal goal or bottom line. Our homepage interface is clear and simple, and pages load instantly. Placement in search results is never sold to anyone, and advertising is not only clearly marked as such, it offers relevant content and is not distracting. And when we build new tools and applications, we believe they should work so well you don’t have to consider how they might have been designed differently.

What does this have to do with Google Product Search? Google Product Search’s main objective is to give the user the best product search result listing hands down. This means there will be better listings than other comparison shopping engines and a more enriched experience for the user. This is also good news for the advertiser. Your brand will be safe with Google when you list your products. When you list with other CSEs, it’s very rare that their philosophy and thinking is the same, as their first priorities may be satisfying board members, year-over-year revenue growth, and profitability.

7. Starting a Google Product Search campaign requires little effort.

In order to have your products listed on Google, all you need is your product catalog’s data feed, a few hours of your time, and the desire to drive more traffic to your site. Once your feed is successfully uploaded, just watch the traffic roll in. Because Google Product Search is free, the time spent managing your Google Product Search campaign is much less than running the same feed through a CPC-driven engine. There is no need to optimize your listings based on poor performing products (high-cost and low revenue) because cost isn’t an issue. Of all comparison shopping engine programs for retailers on the market today, Google Product Search gives you the best revenue-per-time-spent ratio, hands down.

6. A Google Product Search feed means easier integration with the Google Affiliate Network (ability to have SERP image ads).

If you don’t have a Google Product Search feed and are still unsure you want to put the minimal time and resources into getting one up and running, let me add that if you have a Google Product Search account set up, you’re one step closer to running on the Google Affiliate Network and displaying image ads on the Google SERP. Here is a photo of a SERP for the query “Big Agnes SL1 Tent”:

If Backcountry.com didn’t run have a GPS feed, they would only have the one SEO listing for this product and the other sponsored adwords listing. However, because they do run on their feed through GPS, they have the ability to show not once, but twice more on the SERP thanks to the product listing result one box, as well as the image ads typically seen on the top right of the SERP. There have been case studies that show synergy exists when a company has two or more listings on the SERP. Running campaigns with Google Product Search and their affiliate network means more visibility, and more search engine result page ‘real estate’. Running your feed with Google will allow you to have your website visible on both Google Product Search listings and image ads, allowing you to dominate the SERP, much like Backcountry.com has in this example.

5. Google Product Search uses the ‘Google algorithm’ to list products.

It is one of Google’s core competencies: their search algorithm and the ability to provide great results to the user based on their search query. Google is number one in this field, with many imitators and SEOers trying to figure out just how Google ranks websites for the billions of search queries the search engine sees a day. As a core competency, Google is able to leverage this ability to provide useful results in their result pages of Google Product Search. This is a huge advantage for Google over all other comparison shopping engines.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve looked on a Become.com, a PriceGrabber.com, or a Nextag.com to find and compare products offered at different retailer websites, just to be frustrated with the poor results that I get when I do an internal site search. Sometimes I’ll do a search for a winter jacket, and I’ll have a bra and a DVD show up in the results of my search. As a user, it’s very frustrating. Poor results time and time again have users considering their loyalty to these comparison shopping engines. Eventually, they’ll wind up on Google Product Search, where they don’t have to waste time sifting through products that they weren’t interested in. Because Google’s algorithm is much better at finding what the user is looking for in comparison to other CSEs, it makes the user happier and increase loyalty to Google Product Search.

4. Google Product Search doesn’t compete in shady practices.

When someone asks me which CSE has the ‘shadiest’ practices, I always answer PriceGrabber without hesitation. While most CSEs are trying to lean towards a more user-friendly experience, they still need to focus on revenue, meaning your partnership with them isn’t always in their best interest.

As an example, PriceGrabber has a network of sites where your products will be listed when you start running your product catalog feed with them. However, PriceGrabber refuses to send you the list of websites where your products could be listed. PriceGrabber’s reasons for not telling you is because the “list is long and difficult to come by”, when the real reason is they are scared of what you’ll find (this is the same reason why Yahoo doesn’t allow you to manually download a search query report like Google allows… you must request it from your Yahoo Account Manager, if you’re lucky enough to have one). I don’t have the whole list of PriceGrabber network sites, but some of these sites that they don’t want to tell you are Compare247.us, Best-Prices.com, and CheapUncle.com. If you check out these sites, you’ll see they are in it purely make PriceGrabber some extra money, a practice that Google won’t be a part of. When Yahoo announced that they were partnering with PriceGrabber, I was not in the least bit surprised. I am sure the PG/Yahoo partnership gave Google Product Search folks a good laugh.

Shady practices, especially outdated ones as described above, won’t be around too long. The general population is becoming more educated to the internet, and in turn, folks are able to tell the difference between a legitimate site, and a site made as a money-maker. Your products listings will have a better chance of being associated with a user-friendly experience listed on Google vs. some of the other CSEs out there.

3. You can list your entire catalog on Google Product Search.

Because listing your products on Google Product Search is free, there is no need to filter out poor performing items based on conversation rates or a low ROI. In other comparison shopping engines, it is a common practice to filter out products under a certain price point. If a comparison shopping engine is CPC-based, and your catalog consists of products with a price range under $20, it will be a real challenge making your campaign profitable. On average, retailers are charged between $0.30 and $0.40 per click from CPC-based shopping engines. If you have a product catalog filled with tee-shirts on sale for $14.95 and your margin is 50% of that, you have a breakeven conversion rate of 5%. If you don’t sell 1 shirt per 20 clicks to your site, you’ll be losing money. On top of that, average conversion rates in CSEs are usually below 2%, and often much lower than that depending on several factors.

But because Google is free, you’ve got a win-win situation for both the retailers and the users. Retailers are able to submit their entire product catalogs without danger of running up costs, and users now have the ability to search for a much broader range of products since there aren’t any barriers for retailers to list products.

2. Listing on Google Product Search means more SERP ‘real estate’.

As listed above in reason #6, listing your products on Google Product Search means more search engine result page real estate. Not to repeat myself, but this is done through the shopping results one box and through image ads, run through Google Affiliate Network.

However, one thing that wasn’t touched on in reason 6 was the Google Adwords Product PlusBox.  All retailers with both a Google Adwords and a Google Product Search account are able to link the two accounts together, and give them yet more visibility in the SERPs by enabling the Product PlusBox feature. When you connect these two accounts together, Google puts an expandable ‘plus box’ below your sponsored ad, which allows the user to see the most relevant products offered from that retailer depending on the user’s search query. If a user interacts with the plus box by expanding it but doesn’t click through to your site, you’re not charged with the CPC fee associated with the sponsored link.

Having worked with the product plusbox in the past, adding this to your adwords campaign is wildly successful. It increases conversion rate, click through rate, and brand interaction on the SERP. I’ve run tests that have shown that a sponsored link with a plusbox gets a 41% higher CTR than those ads without one. Also, take a look at this image of the expanded plusbox. The added visibility and real-estate is a nice win.

1.  Google Product Search is FREE.

The number one reason why you should be running with Google Product Search is obvious; because it doesn’t cost you a dime. The only thing required of you is your product catalog feed and a little bit of your time. Google Adwords charges you a CPC fee, hiring an SEO agency will cost you a good amount of management fees, and listing on any other comparison shopping engine will cost you. Not Google Product Search… it’s all free. And it’s my opinion it will remain free for the foreseeable future. Here’s a quick summary why:

Google recognizes the competition in the CSE landscape (at least they have in the last few years). Offering their product listing for free means there are no barriers to entry for the retailer… any mom and pop store with thin margins can list their products on GPS for no charge. They can also list all of their products without any repercussions. Because Google Product Search is so inviting to retailers big and small, the user gets a better experience while shopping on their site: more products, better search results, non-obtrusive advertising, and a better selection of stores to choose from. Finally, not charging retailers for listing their products is good for Google. They are able to own the CSE landscape leveraging what they’re already good at, they’re able to sell great advertising space on the right side and top of the page, and they have the ability to provide the best user experience folks have ever seen in the CSE landscape.

Some industry folks say that Google will begin charging retailers to list on Google Product Search. If this happened, there will be massive backlash. Google beginning to charge for GPS listings would be getting awfully close to bait-and-switch strategy, which isn’t in Google’s best interest.  There is no good way to start charging retailers for something that has been free for its 7+ years of existence. Google Analytics is free, Google Docs is free, Google Mail (g-mail) is free, Google Reader is free: so what would happen if Google started charging for all these services? It would be pretty ugly. As an ‘industry folk’ myself, I’ll stand firm that Google Product Search will remain free.

In the companies I’ve worked with and consulted for, Google Product Search has shown that it has the ability to bring in just as much revenue as a robust SEM campaign can. Google Product Search listings, like SEM and SEO campaigns, can also be tweaked for maximum visibility. There are strategies that can be implemented to see that your products get listed higher than your competition. So why doesn’t Google Product Search get a lot of play? Not sure, but hopefully this post serves as a great start to getting to know Google Product Search. Begin to impress your retail clients today!

–noun: a piece of work, esp. a specific task done as part of the routine of one’s occupation or for an agreed price: She gave him the job of mowing the lawn.

What is a career?

–noun: an occupation or profession, esp. one requiring special training, followed as one’s lifework: He sought a career as a lawyer.

What do you think of when you hear the word “job”? What about “career”? When I think of a ‘job’, the first thing that comes to mind is maybe emptying the dishwasher, or raking the leaves, or shoveling the snow off my driveway. When I think of a ‘career’, I think of a profession, a path that gets you from your college diploma and your off-campus apartment to your Maserati and your house on the golf course.

This is why I cringe when I look at the footer of websites of companies who are hiring, and instead of labeling their available employment slots as ‘careers’, they list them as ‘jobs’. I think you send the wrong message when your site shows ‘jobs’ vs. ‘careers’ (unless you are just hiring for a job, like a seasonal employee at a ski resort for example). If you don’t like either word, then what about using the phrase “employment”?

Anyways, if you are applying for a very specific ‘job’ opening at a company, be sure to ask what the career path is, because job paths don’t really exist. Companies that have ‘job’ listings are looking for a peg to fit a hole, while companies looking for a folks to have a career with them sounds a heck of a lot better. When the day comes and we hire our first employee, I’ll see that ‘jobs’ isn’t listed on our website. I want someone that can be molded, someone who performs a collection of different duties, and someone who is flexible and can learn different subjects, all while keeping their focus on where they want to be in 5 or 10 years. In return, I’ll see that we can offer the ability for the individual to grow.

Ultimately, I feel that it’s the company’s responsibility to give the employee a road map to having a successful career path. It’s the people that make the company revolve. Next time you go to interview for a ‘job’ vs. a ‘career’, play cautiously. Ask very specific questions on how the company helps it’s employees achieve their career goals.

A career is the pursuit of a lifelong ambition or the general course of progression towards lifelong goals.

A job is an activity through which an individual can earn money. It is a regular activity in exchange of payment.

Career = good, job = bad. Just a heads up!

1080 Euclid Avenue NE, Apartment 804, Atlanta GA 30307

It’s a loft apartment, meaning high ceilings, big windows, and open areas. I am sitting at the local Barnes and Noble right now, getting some work done, researching various utility options for our apartment, and trying to get caught up on e-mails. If you’ve e-mailed me and I haven’t responded, I apologize! Moving is such a pain in this regard…

I miss the mountains of Utah a lot, but the greenery and the warm weather of the south has welcomed me back with open arms. A quick weekend up in the N. Georgia mountains was in store last weekend… after 30ish miles on the Appalachian Trail, I feel at home!

Really looking forward to getting started with being a full time consultant and putting a lot of time and effort into this start-up idea that we’ve been discussing. More to follow

Anyways, I wanted to send a qucik note that tomorrow at 4pm EST, Trada.com CEO Niel Robertson will be on “This Week In Statups”. About TWiST, from the “This Week In Startups” website:

Entrepreneur Jason Calacanis and a rotating group of guest experts bring you this weekly take on the best, worst, most outrageous and interesting stories from the world of Web companies.  Calacanis, a podcasting pioneer, gives you an insider’s look at what’s happening in the tech industry with his trademark blunt style and good humor.  Looking to start your own company?  Need strategies for improving your business of motivating your team?  Just want to catch up on what’s happening in Silicon Valley and beyond?  Your journey begins here.

Since my review on Trada.com earlier this quarter, Trada has been gaining a lot of buzz around the SEM industry.I am looking forward to watching the program tomorrow to hear about the recent updates that have been made to the platform, as well as the future of the company.

Should be a good episode… tune in at 4pm EST.

Peace!

To keep a long story short, I am relocating back to Atlanta to be involved with a start up project with two college buddies. We’re very excited to kick this thing into the next gear. More to come on this idea soon!

I had a great time working at Backcountry.com. I made a lot of great connections and will miss the folks and atmosphere. It was a real treat working there for the last 24 months.

Having said that, does anyone need a Tempur-Pedic bed, big screen TV, or Blue La-Z-Boy? They gotta go quick.

I am due back in Atlanta around the weekend of April 17th… looking forward to getting back in touch!

“I just bought a rockin’ iPod Nano from Walmart at a great price… you should check it out!”

“What? You haven’t heard of the kindle yet? It’s a wireless reading device… in 10 years everyone will have one.”

In these above sentences, I am testing out a new program that I’ve installed to my blog called Viglink. Viglink is a quick and easy way to monetize your blog (or website) through links that you may have already placed on your site. From Viglink’s FAQ page:

VigLink enables you to get paid for doing what you normally do on your blog or site. Whenever you link to a product, website, or promotion, VigLink turns that link into an affiliate link so that you receive a commission for any purchases made.

So in the above three sentences where I mention the book Twitter Power, the iPod Nano, and the Kindle, I linked to Amazon.com twice and Walmart.com once. However, Viglink inserted some tracking code on the end of the URL that tracks users coming from my site. If you then buy those items, or any item on those sites in a certain time frame, they’ll see that I referred them to the store and I’ll get a commission. It’s affiliate marketing 101, but it’s interesting because Viglink makes it easy for you to become an affiliate. There are many affiliate programs out there that anyone can gain access to; the problem is that signing up for them is very time consuming. It’s a great concept, and while there are other companies that have done this in the past, Viglink does a great job explaining how it works.

In case you were wondering, Viglink makes their money by taking a slice of the revenue made from your sale. Considering how easy it was to set up, I’d gladly give them a slice of the pie.

Because some companies have been building sites based around the same concept (SkimLinks, DrivingRevenue, Chango), Viglink has been backed with $800k seed funding, some of which coming from Google Ventures. I expect bigger and better things from Viglink, especially with Google backing them… that says a lot. I wouldn’t be surprised if they moved this concept to monetizing tweets, amongst other things. Only time will tell…

Give it a shot @ Viglink.com.

Maybe you’ve seen these commercials and have wondered the same thing…there is no way I can be the only one that feels a little bit turned off by the cowboy hat. Did he just get back from the ranch? So… what’s the deal with Charles Binder’s cowboy hat dude?

I have the answers… props to my mother who e-mailed Binder and Binder asking these questions. And ‘hats off’ (har har) to the folks at Binder and Binder and their communications department for responding to the request.

Hi Barbara,

I’m the guy responsible for the Binder and Binder commercials. I understand how you feel about Charles’ semi-disreputable hat. The reason he’s wearing it is simple. It was chilly on the day the commercial was recorded. It’s his hat, and he always wears his hat on a chilly day.

His line? We’ll deal with the government, you have enough to worry about,’ was the result of a question I asked him. I said, ‘If I were a client, what would you tell me was the most important thing that Binder and Binder would do for me.’

That line came from the heart. It wasn’t written for him. I think that comes through on the commercial. So we kept both the line, and the hat.

Some people say they don’t want to be represented by a guy who wears a hat. I think it’s what’s under the hat that counts. Nobody wins as many Social Security Disability cases as Binder and Binder. Nobody.

I think that leaves people with a choice: Hire the guy who wears a dorky hat, but gives you the best chance of winning your case, or go with a guy who doesn’t have that kind of track record but doesn’t wear a hat on a chilly day.

I appreciate the time and effort you took to let me know how you feel about our commercials, and I’d like to send you one of our nifty Binder sport shirts as a ‘thank you’ gift. So could you please just return this note with your shirt size and an address so I can send it to you.

Thanks.

Dick Summer
Communications Director

This is such an epic response. To break it down, he is wearing the hat because it was cold. I guess they were filming this outside… after all the Empire State building is in the background. It is Charles Binder’s hat, and he always wears it on a cold day. Don’t ask him to take it off because chances are he won’t (especially on a cold day).

The line that Charles says is “We’ll deal with the government, you have enough to worry about’. Fair enough… I probably would choose to say something else, but this isn’t bad. And if you couldn’t tell, that line came from his heart. There’s no doubt that he completely meant that. You can tell by his tone, his expression, and his hat.

It is true, some people don’t want to be represented by a man in a hat. Does this mean Charles Binder wears his hat to his meetings with the government? Is it common etiquette to take your hat off in a government building? Maybe when he deals with the government, they do it in a neutral location. Or maybe on his ranch. Regardless, it’s definitely what’s under the hat that counts. Are you kidding me? Seems like a fourth grader response (I feel obligated to mention that Charles Binder is bald).

Before being offered a ‘nifty’ Binder shirt, we are given an ultimatum: chose the guy with the hat, or chose the guy who doesn’t wear a hat on a chilly day. I’ll have to think about this one for a bit.

So what’s the deal with this?

I don’t know who is to blame for a botched commercial and a crappy PR response to a question. Should we point and laugh at Binder and Binder or our good friend Dick Summer who appears to be the communications director for Charles Binder and his cowboy hat. Maybe a bit of both.

Google ‘Binder and Binder’. As you type in the search query, look at the suggested queries that Google recommends:

What this means is in general, when people search for Binder and Binder online, folks are trying to find information about scams and complaints based around Binder and Binder, as well as the commercials with his hat. It looks like the commercial is creating quite the stir… about Charles Binder’s hat.

Watch the commercial again. Remember the guy that went all the way to Alaska? Well, it turns out that the picture of the advocate who went to Alaska is a picture of our very own Dick Summer, Communications Director. It wasn’t very hard to find the image on the internet that they used in the commercial. Seriously?

Looking at Binder and Binder’s and Dick Summer‘s website, it doesn’t seem like they’re too web savvy (in case you can’t read, there is an audio introduction to each of Dick Summer’s pages on his site). And judging by what we’ve found, it doesn’t seem like they’re great at producing commercials, either. I guess their target market consists of people who watch the ‘Price is Right’ or late night re-runs of your favorite 70s sitcoms, and people who don’t know what the internet is… it’s easy to find the warning signs of Binder and Binder by several web searches.

How can anyone take this company seriously? No wonder folks are getting scammed by them. I got nothin’ else. I really hope that we get some ‘nifty’ shirts out of this, though! Charles Binder, give me a MacBook and a few hours of your time, and I’ll be happy to create your next commercials. Only next time, we’ll have you wear a cape… after all, we all enjoy lawyers wearing capes. Both Dick Summer and Charles Binder are just a few french fries short of a happy meal.

And don’t forget to join the Charles Binder’s Hat facebook group!