Eat What?!

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You may have heard a lot lately about this search war between Google and Yahoo, who has the biggest search index, etc., etc. This doesn’t really affect me all that much… I tend to make my decisions based on what is most convenient. However, a banner ad I encountered today might scare me away from Yahoo for a while.

eat spiders

Sorry for the small image size, but I think you can still make out that awful monstrosity on the left side of the image. And, let me be the first to say… BLECH! I don’t want to know how many spiders I eat while I sleep! I’d rather remain blissfully ignorant since, upon waking up, I obviously don’t realize I’ve eaten one.

What I’m dying to know is whether this type of marketing strategy is working for them. It’s not as though you can’t do a similar search on Google (in fact, a Google search revealed that it is highly unlikely to swallow spiders while you sleep), and I promise that this ad isn’t doing any favors for their arachnophobe demographic. I’m slightly disturbed that all my Yahoo search results will start featuring spiders that I eat while asleep. Playing with phobias is tricky business; if you aren’t careful, you might get the opposite effect.

The conversation continues...

  1. On October 4th, 2005 at 1:55 pm, Samantha K. said:

    YUCK. I always worry about spiders after being bit by one several times around my eye while camping years ago. Luckily spiders in Pittsburgh aren’t too bad. I had tons of them in the places I lived in Georgia.

  2. On October 6th, 2005 at 12:47 pm, Laura said:

    oh dear god, spiders here aren’t bad? I’ve encountered more in the 2 months i’ve been here than in the past 5 years in california. And they’re bigger, uglier, scarier, etc.

    Note to self: no trips to georgia anytime soon.

  3. On October 10th, 2005 at 3:24 am, Dave Young said:

    LOL. I think it is like 8 or something. I hate spiders I once had to fight off a huge one when i was living in australia, it was so big it held itself momentarily above the toilet drain when i tried to flush it. Thank god for plungers i think water is weaker when it goes down clockwise.

    oh and filed under other useless facts… on average everyone is shat upon by a bird at least once in every 30 years.

What do you think?