Jim Boykin insults Andy Beal, Aaron Wall, Schoemaker, Stuntdubl, himself and others!

This is a light hearted post. If you want to insult someone here in the UK - you call them a tool.


Andy Beal, Aaron Wall, Bill Slawski, Cameron Olthuis, Christine Churchill, Chuck Price, Jeremy Schoemaker, Jim Boykin, Jim Gilbert, Jill Whalen, Lee Odden, Neil Patel and Todd Malicoat aren't tools. I'm sure they're all very nice people!

I'm being silly, of course. At the most this AdWords creative from Jim Boykin is an illustration of the sort of culture issues a global AdWords campaign can encounter - even if the language, more of less, stays the same.

I initially noticed the AdWord because the author is bidding on SMX as a keyword. That's a compliement to Danny Sullivan, Chris Sherman and his team (they aren't tools either) but if Third Door Media was a client I would encourage them to stop this sort of thing (trademarks and polite 'please stop' emails allowing). You don't want to invest the sort of energy they do in promoting SMX only for a related product, that isn't yours, to come along and ride in your slipstream.

I've not looked at Boykin's Internet Marketing Ninjas videos ($2995 is more than my curisoty budget allows) but - as Andy Beal points out - Jim already has a good reputation in training, and nobody on Jim's ninja list would allow their name to be associated with a poor product. So I'm sure the videos are very good. RustyBrick, who isn't in this set of videos, has also said positive things and Jeff Quip started a popular Sphinn on the news.

My word - a bit of research before posting certainly helps - wikipedia notes that 'tool' isn't just a UK insult as the US army also uses it. The likely first instance of the word being used as a slur may be from 'labor reform resolution drafted by the Female Labor Reform Association in 1845'. Well! We learn something new every day.

Comments

Anonymous said…
It's not the first time, and probably won't be the last, that I've been called a tool. ;-)
Jill said…
Nor the first time I've been insulted! :D Just kidding...definitely not instulted there.
Anonymous said…
Hum....I hear ya...but what you you call/consider SEO Tools (we offer ninja training and SEO tools)?
(I'm open to ideas...I've got 10 different ads running in adwords).

FYI, I'd hope bidding on SMX wouldn't offend Danny and team....just seemed like the type of audience I'm trying to reach. Last week I also paid them (third door media) a lot of money for an advertising campaign on their properties that will be starting soon...again, because I think it's relevant traffic.

I'd be happy to stop bidding on SMX if anyone there doesn't think it's right to do.
Jim
Andrew Girdwood said…
Hiya Jim,

Don't take this post too seriously. It's a bit of light hearted link bait :) If no one objects to the smx bid and you've got good CTR and conversion rates on the 'tools' creative then I wouldn't change a thing. Well. I might create a UK landing page with the subscription cost in pounds (or co-currency) and use that for the UK but it's certainly nothing worth fusing over. :)
Dr. Pete said…
How about "SEO Ninjas and Weaponry"? :)

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