About Influence And The Willing Suspension Of Disbelief

When I am speaking with brands I always get the "How Much" question.  

This is a two part question.  

The first "How Much" question is in relation to how much I would charge to write about their brand or watch.  I tell them - ZERO.  Tempus Fugit provides Freemium coverage! This is often a cause for much bewilderment. Well, I guess I'm just a bit different ; )

Now you never know, I might bring back the good-old fashioned banner ad, but apart from that I will not be cranking out "in partnership with" content any sooner than I will be writing glowing feedback on Invicta, or attending any NOMOS events.

With that said, the second "How Much" question related to traffic on Tempus Fugit.  I patiently explain that first and foremost, a deeper dive into the analytics will reveal that my typical traffic is about 1,000 - 2,000 hits per day, and that as I am posting less frequently these days, a day when I have an exceptionally large readership is most likely when a click farm gets the wrong website to "ping". And an even deeper dive will indicate that 3,500 or so of those 5,000 good-traffic-day clicks all come (for example) from Russia. Which considering that my traffic from there is usually less than 100 total on a good day,  you might wonder why I was suddenly so popular in the former seat of the CCCP.  

So I feel, well, compelled to reiterate that while I am certain that there are a few digital watch outlets out there that have as many as 30,000 unique (and more importantly) legitimate visitors per day, I doubt that this is the case for the vast number of outlets making that claim when they share their rate sheets in the hope of scoring some easy money. So as a public service announcement, I would share this clip from the television series Silicon Valley. And let it be a cautionary tale to every watch brand that drops tens of thousands of dollars on coverage in the hopes that even 1,000 customers will be lining up to buy their watch based on a paid appearance with some of the self-proclaimed big dogs. To be clear, this is a fictional tv show, but the reality of click farms is for "realsies".

Now ultimately, I like to think that if you are reading Tempus Fugit, you didn't come for the photography and you are not afraid of sitting at the unpopular table with the less attractive kids in the school cafeteria. And in fairness, I realize that it is a hard world, people need to work, and they need to eat and pay rent. But to quote that other great commentator on the watch business, Robert Townsend in Hollywood Shuffle?

"There's always work at the Post Office."