Post Your PostSecret Product Placement Suggestions Here!
Published: September 20, 2009
Today I noticed that PostSecret is now posting “product placement” postcards on its site. At least, I assume it is — how else to explain this “secret” posted there today, wherein someone “confesses” how much they just love that HBO Original Programming™ (but please don’t tell anyone, tee-hee)? Don’t worry, anonymous poster: Your secret addiction to True Blood — which airs Sundays at 9 pm Eastern on HBO — is safe with us!
Of course it’s always possible that this True Blood “secret” is a genuine one sent in by some real person, and not some bullshit one created by a marketing pro working at, or for, HBO or Time Warner … Ha ha, just kidding! That’s clearly not possible. I was just checking to see if you were paying attention.
What is possible is that Frank Warren is just really just naïve, and that he posted this ad believing it to be a genuine secret and didn’t get paid anything for it. If that’s true, it’s really sad, because that True Blood postcard placement (right at the top of the PostSecret home page) is probably worth millions of dollars to HBO.
Anyway, regardless of whether Frank is a sellout or merely a schnook, I think we can all agree that the card itself is a corporate-marketing concoction. So I’d like to propose a little contest. (Yes, I’m finally getting around to the suggestion stated in the title … about time, huh?) Wordsmoker Nation: I challenge you to make up your own “PostSecret product-placement fake secrets” and post them in the comments section below. You only need to post the text of the secret – you don’t have to create “postcard art” or anything. (But for those of you who have the artistic ability, time and inclination to do so – please feel free!)
Here are a few suggested entries of my own to get the ball rolling:
- Who needs porn when I have pictures of my sexy Mazda RX-8 to masturbate to?
- My Secret deodorant is strong enough for a man. I know, because I used to be one! (Don’t’ tell my husband!)
- You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s – but if you did, I’d let a Rabbi circumcise me right here on the spot, just so I could eat some! (That’s right – I love Levy’s more than I love my own foreskin!)
Anyway, you get the idea. So start posting your own PostSecret product-placement secrets now, and may the best corporate-shill-wannabe win!
Here’s shot of that True Blood postcard in the context of the PostSecret logo at the top of the home page.
If it isn’t an ad, it sure looks like one.
Is nothing sacred?
Oh, Frank.
I’m probably dating myself with that Levy’s ad reference, huh? Have those ads even been around since the 1970s? Am I the only one who remembers them?
Here’s a sample:
My Secret:
To deal with the odor problem than men don’t have I use pre-moistened and lint-free Bidette feminine towelettes to freshen my vaginal walls and provide me with all day daintiness.
In case anyone wonders where HBO might have come with the idea of creating that postcard, here’s a site of their own, created to promote their show “Big Love.”: http://www.hbo.com/biglove/webofsecrets/” rel=”nofollow”>Web of Secrets.
The site features real secrets sent in by real people. Cool idea, huh?
Kora: That is indeed a shocking confession.
Here’s a related confession of my own: I myself have the “odor problem that men don’t have” — and I’m a man!
Oh, the shame, the shame …
Hip : I’ve often remarked that you seem to lack “all day daintiness.”
“I love John Mayer.” [Postcard art: Photograph of an extravagantly bearded and bleary-eyed Hell's Angel, from the neck up, reflected off the chrome gas tank of his Harley. Distantly in the background: A tiny, hieroglyph-like vulture circling in the Wedgwood-blue southern California sky.]
Lawergay: Ooh, that’s good.
Almost as good as this “I Love Tucker Max” postcard, which actually got posted on PostSecret (and was obviously created and sent in by Tucker Max):
Here is my PostSecret. I don’t know who Tucker Max is.
Kora: You are a lucky person. I wish I didn’t either.
I’m sorry but the WS ad overlords know WHO I AM!!!
Nina: Based on the title, I was expecting something a little … uh, different.
I’m secretly fucking our old neighbor, Oscar Mayer, whose schlong is twice as big as my husband’s.
Hip: Just like when PEOPLE MEET ME!
@MamaP: No we’re not!
Mama P: Is this post the yang to your marital advice yin?
Mama P: And no wonder everyone’s in love with him.
@Chillbear: Goddamnit Oscar, it’s time to come clean!
@Kneetoe: He’s being really difficult lately. It wouldn’t be hard for you to move in on his bidness, if you get my drift.
Here’s what I came here to post, before I was lured into potty-mouth territory by the boys.
I am a precocious infant who has crawled two miles for a puff of a Virginia Slims cigarette.
Mama P: My product is free range, organic, and all beef. Although, full disclosure, there are hormones invloved.
@Kneetoe: Goodness! I’m fanning myself. I sense a certain fresh flavor, a savory goodness, a full meal deal, if you will.
Exactly. Satisfying and delicious. You’ll just have to tell your friends about it.
@Hip: I have been racking my brain for 72 hours to try to come up with something for this. I am aware of Post Secret, but have never really gotten into reading them. That lack of attention to the site has left me unprepared for this piece. I’m sure that months from now, you will notice in the recent comments column “ChillbearLatrigue on Post Your PostSecret Product Placement Suggestions Here!” No one will have any idea what the hell it is all about because we’ll have seen hundreds of other articles since then.