'Smash My Viper' Juices Million Dollar Homepage Trend
Just when you thought the million dollar homepage trendlet had run its course and couldn't be taken any further, University of Maryland Baltimore County graduate Jason Gunther has elevated the game with Smash My Viper. In short, the more an advertiser spends on the page for pixel space, the physical greater damage they can inflict upon Gunther's Viper. Yes, he's letting people pay to destroy his car while offering them ad space in return. Gunther hopes the ongoing saga of the slowly destroyed car, which will be covered in detail on the site and the site's blog, will keep people coming back for more and keep the impression level high for advertisers. Oh, and then there's the eye candy. And we don't just mean the sexy car. Gunther has gathered together some models, likely his friends, to slither all over the viper in typical car model poses all while the car is being slowly destroyed.
Purchasing one ten by ten pixel gets the advertiser a 6 inch key mark on the Viper. Purchasing five ten by ten pixels get the advertiser a hole drilled in the car. A purchase of 25 ten by ten pixels gets a Louisville Slugger bat smash and placement of the advertisers' 12 inch by four inch logo on the car. And, in true media negotiation style, for those advertisers who purchase 50 ten by ten pixels, Gunther will allow the advertiser to come up with their own idea such as placing a pig wearing a sweater with the advertiser's logo on it in the car for a week or have Gunther do a burnout until the tires pop.
This is ingenious. Ingenious as million dollar homepages go, that is. This is consumer created all the way. Content, promotion, sales, everything. And it has a purpose beyond simply making money. Gunther hopes to use the money to launch a business.
Comments
Greatly written article!
I'm actually surprised that this would get written about in Adrants. Where is the value for the advertiser? Are people going to actually go to that website to see WHICH advertisers paid to have damage done to this car? No, I'm going to go the site to see the damage to this 6-figure ride, and which busty babe did it. The million-dollar-pixel idea gets people to really tune-in to the advertisers; great idea. But this viper idea --I'm surprised it even received 15 seconds of fame.
Yes! They have a lot of traffic due to the unique idea. The advertiser gets their ad on the pixel grid along with the bigger version that shows when it hovers over the smaller version. They are also integrating the advertisers into the videos, pictures, updates etc. Plus the pixel grid is also on the video and picture gallery pages as well as the homepage. On the picture page, you have to scroll down through the pixel grid (which means looking at ads) in order to see even see their pictures from the gallery. Makes sense to me.
Well we won't know what the value is for a while but compared to many other million dollar omepages, this one, at least, has reason for a return visit. There's something to see other than just a page full of ads.
I don't know if I agree with ruinning such a nice car like that. But on the flip side...can anyone actually SEE these little pixel ads?? No. I like what this site is doing... http://www.zillionwebsites.com ...at least here you can actually see what you are clicking on.
this shit is fucking lame. stop linking to this crap. so the traffic MAY be high for one week because bloggers have nothing better to write about than some douche selling pixel ads. no one is going to keep coming back to see this stupid shit. and i would bet that on ALL pixel ad sites, a high percentage of any click-throughs DO NOT result in sales or any sort of brand retention. fuck... i can't believe people pay to advertise on this shit.
Wow, Anon you sound like a real smart marketing guy. You have no clue what you're talking about. What statistics can you show that prove that? You're just talking out of your ***
Hope he's careful with his contractual language. "Buy $10 in pixels and you can hit this" is likely to lead to fraudulent advertising claims.
(I'm with Anon. Enough's enough guys. We get the concept.)
Wow, it looks like they are selling tons of ads! Booyaa!$$$
LOL.
hahah they havn't sold evenough to fix the scratches.... i hope they dont sell anymore that is lame
he bitches about money, yet he owns a viper.... wtf??
i may buy a bunch and smash the dash so he cant drive it
it's so funny that people still doubt the power of a new idea. Once Alex Tew's site hit a million dollars and left customers wanting more it was obvious that this trend would keep going.
That's why I'm going to make $100 million dollars branding the idea.
http://www.milliondollarhomepageformilliondollarhomepages.com is for advertising all these folks with million dollar homepages, and
http://www.milliondollarhomepageforpeople.com is perfect for advertising blogs like this one, and there're more...
MillionDollarHomepageFor... (you name it)
I've already got 30+ domains registered and people are buying in to start their own MillionDollarHomepageFor... sites.
Just get over it. It's already been four months and the million dollar homepage concept is already getting to be common table conversation. This thing is here to stay and it will only get bigger...