Foot fetishists vs Brand Awareness
One of the things I like about using twitter @treepixie is that you mention a brand in passing and if they are good at their jobs they pop up and comment back like @moleskine or @overheardatmoo or occasionally give you a freebie like @luckyvoice .I suppose it then makes sense that these hipster brands will also notice if you post photos of their products on Flickr too, right? Nothing weird in that.
Nonetheless there’s something a bit scary about our team lawn bowls sesh being used to sell Birkenstocks. I’m a real stats stalker and love using Google Analytics and Flickr stats to see who’s looking at what. After I posted a few pics of our summer work do I noticed that all the photo’s of my colleague Gill had been favourited by a man called ‘SandalenMichael’. There is a small selection of his favourite photos collection below (above?). I confess I thought ‘Ut oh, Dude be a foot fetishist’…not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just that I wondered how I’d explain it to Gill.
Looking a bit closer I noticed that the guy’s email address was something like “sandalentrager” or sandal seller in German. Then the Birkenstock blog referrals started popping up. Not sure if the two are connected but it’s somehow a bit less worrying somehow that the pics are being used to connect fun pursuits like lawn-bowls with wearing Birkenstocks. I think it’s quite neat the way they have identified the model of Gill’s shoes and linked them to a sales page, although now I dwell on it I think that’s a no-no of my Creative Commons licensing status. Maybe I should have a word?!
In any case, Gill has seen the funny side, thank god.
