No, no… Mamabistro hasn’t sold us out, yet. In fact, it’s more like a hostile take over… of sorts. Liberty Mutual, an insurance company that pimps the tagline “Responsibility. What your policy?,” is being irresponsible. The brand is buying up key words such as Paul Tilley and AgencySpy to drive traffic to their website. The blog The Tribble Agency was kind enough to let us know about all this weirdness yesterday, since some of the Google keywords appear on their site. See them here.
Hmm… mighty lost on this one. We got even more lost when we headed to the Responsibility Project homepage, which also features this story written by Kathy McManus, an award-winning broadcast journalist who has 25 years of reporting beneath her belt:
“It’s possible to be a Good Samaritan. But is it possible to be a not-good-enough Samaritan? A Canadian woman was recently confronted with that question when two killers accused her of not doing enough to save a man they had beaten and left for dead.”
Sorry. Confused. Why is an insurance company promoting and actively buying up keywords related to tragic deaths? Oh right. To sell life insurance. From their website:
“It all began when we ran a TV commercial about people doing things for strangers. The response was truly overwhelming. Thousands of emails and letters from people all over the country thanking us.
We thought, if one TV spot from Liberty Mutual can get people thinking and talking about responsibility, imagine what could happen if we went a step further? So we created a series of short films, and this website, as an exploration of what it means to do the right thing.
We believe that the more people think and talk about responsibility, and even debate what it means, the more it can affect how we live our daily lives. And perhaps, in this small way, together, we can make the world just a little better.”
Um, ‘allo? This isn’t a website about strangers doing good for strangers. It’s about creating a maelstrom around tragic deaths and encouraging sensationalism. Go back to the brainstorm room, Liberty. The first idea was much, much better.