A really curious thing happened to me a few years ago after I bought coffee from a local cafe. I handed the cashier a $20 bill and she gave me a few bills back in change. I noticed that one of the $1 bills with “WheresGeorge.com” stamped all over it.
I immediately thought that this was a brilliant marketing idea. Just imagine how many people would see this stamped bill as it changed hands countless times from person-to-person. One stamped bill has the potential of being circulated to thousands of different people all over the world during it’s lifetime.
This concept was not new to me. Back in middle school my friends and I were into playing jokes on one another involving prank phone calls. We would do things such as call all the doctors and dentists in the phone book and leave messages on their answering machine or with their answering service and give them a friends name and phone number. The next day they would get calls from tons of dentists and doctors - all day long. We later came up with the idea of writing a girls name and a male friends phone number “Jenny xxx-xxx-xxxx” on dollar bills with a heart next to it. In the upcoming weeks, months, and years he would get countless calls from callers asking to speak to Jenny. It was hysterical!
I know I had run across one of the estimated 103 million bills stamped with WheresGeorge.com before, but this time I was really curious. I had initially thought that this might be a political site about George Bush, but it turned out to be a site that tracks bills as they float across the country and beyond.
I was far more concerned with whether or not this viral form of guerilla marketing a website’s URL on currency is legal or not — because if it is, I’m all over it!
Is this Legal?
Hank Eskin, the WheresGeorge.com brainchild pictured above, says people tell him all the time that defacing dollar bills is illegal. But he claims it is not, as long as the money is still spendable.
The treasury’s website states that it’s illegal to deface or damage money to the point of it’s being unusable so that painting the whole thing with black paint would be illegal (but painting only one side could be argued to be legal).
Claudia Dickens, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, agreed with Eskin, as quoted in The New York Times she said, “According to the laws as they stand now, the practice is not illegal.
”Whoever mutilates, cuts, disfigures, perforates, unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, Federal Reserve Bank, or Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such item(s) unfit to be reissued, shall be fined not more than $100 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.”
Now it’s also illegal to alter a bill/coin in such a way as to change it’s face or collector’s value (such as tearing corners off a $20 and taping them to a $1, a very cheap and yet sometimes quite successfull way of counterfeiting, or to change a common coin to look like a rarer one) but these fall under fraud statutes and isn’t really what’s being discussed here
anyways.
As long as the dollar can still be used as a dollar (even if it’s in pieces, the bank can still replace it for a whole one and send that one to be destroyed) and there’s no fraud intended, it’s legal.
Stop Selling the Stamps
Yet the Secret Service reportedly hassled Hank Eskin to stop selling the WheresGeorge.com stamps that are still being sold by other people, saying that was using money for free advertising.
And Jim Mackin, an agent assigned to public affairs in the Washington office of the Secret Service, told the St. Louis Dispatch in 2002 that: “We would discourage anyone from participating in such a scheme.”
Mackin said that violators who are caught are told to cease and desist - and usually do to avoid legal action.
Making Money with Money
All of this back and forth between the Secret Service and these websites has not stopped WheresGeorge.com and all its imitators and followers from tracking currency as bills make their way across the globe.
Seeing as though I’m more obsessed lately with how much money bloggers and webmasters are making, I tried to track down Eskin’s income from WheresGeorge.com, since I noticed he’s running Google Adsense ads on the site.
What I did find were WheresGeorge.com’s advertising rates, which give information about the site’s pageviews and how much they charge in terms of CPM — or cost per thousand impressions.
Putting these numbers into a Google spreadsheet. I was able to discover that WheresGeorge.com could be pulling in anywhere from $7,600 (the presold WheresGeorge.com advertising space not listed as immediately available) up to $43,320 per month — the revenue generated if all available slots were sold.
Not bad for Eskin, who says WheresGeorge.com is mainly a fun habit, and that he’s not selling anything. And while the income generated by the site has been said to cover the cost of servers and other hosting expenses, I’d bet you anything that WheresGeorge.com’s money is covering a whole lot more than this now, years later.
Good for Eskin for coming up with a fascinating and ingenius approach to free website marketing.
Check out the video below for the firsthand story behind the government’s reaction to his website.
This concept is like having a business card that is guaranteed to get passed around from person-to-person until it falls apart. People can throw out business cards, but they will NEVER throw out money, regardless if it’s a $1 bill or a $100 bill it will definitely be circulated to hundreds if not thousands of people all over the world.
So if you want an awesome idea to promote your website for FREE then follow this approach, use money to make money and put your money to work for you! Stamp your site’s URL on dollar bills, spend the money like you would normally, and watch your “direct link/bookmark” traffic increase.
This is another one of those ideas where I say to myself, “why didn’t I think of that?” Very cool idea indeed.
You have some really useful ideas here… Well thought out and thoroughly explained.
No, the idea isn’t new….but I’d forgotten all about it too…
Thank you. =)
Danny Vice
I found Where’s George about 4 years ago and thought it was brillant Advertising. It kept me going to the site and I even paid for a stamp to put the ad on all my money.
Aye, smart George!
But it is not exactly very legal to deface the dollar notes though.
On the other hand, there is a new Free Traffic Driving force emerging in the Cyberspace that us Bloggers cruise about, it is called “Entrecard”
To me, I have a some what strong feeling that Entrecard thingie is going be a totally massive Cyber Tsunami (Tidal Wave) that will sweep through the Cyberspace.
Cheers!
Actually it is not illegal in the United States to write or stamp money as long as it’s still fit for circulation.
This law applies to paper money, not coins.
Check out the U.S. Treasury department or the Federal Reserve websites.
It is illegal however in some countries like England and Singapore, but not in the United States.
Stamping your site url on MONEY - awesome idea!
Great post BTW
Agree with Deimos Tel’Arin
Entrecard is the Next Wave!
I wonder how well this would work?!? I usually ignore my money and probably wouldn’t even notice these stamps.
This works. A single dollar bill probably sees at least 10-30 people a day, hundreds of people a week, and thousands of people a year. A URL or phone number on a bill like this will give you tons of free advertising and a huge audience.
Just out of curiosity how many users can I expect to visit my site if I stamp 1000 bills? Do $1 bills have much better results than $100?
I tried advertising this way for a while but didn’t see quite the same type of traffic gains that I would see through advertising on social networking sites such as Digg and StumbleUpon.
I am surprised that no large corporations have attempted to use currency as a means of advertising. This must be illegal at some level otherwise a huge corporation would have done it by now.
It is actually illegal to advertise on currency:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/475.shtml
This is why Wheresgeorge.com was forced to stop selling rubber stamps with their URL on it.
Anyone who tries this might very well also get a visit from the Secret Service. You have been warned.
Actually it is not illegal to advertise provided the currency is still fit for distribution.
See: http://www.bep.treas.gov/document.cfm/18/104
AJ, the link you provided states that it is illegal to make advertisements that resemble or mimic U.S. currency or stamps, but says nothing about advertising on currency. Read it again.
Actually, you should read it again. I actually know what I’m talking about.
Regardless of the “fit to be re-issued” argument, it is clearly illegal to advertise on currency. Section 475 (the link I posted) supersedes the defacement issue (Section 333 - the link you posted). You can write stuff on a bill, as long as it’s not “unfit to be re-issued.” But under no circumstances can anyone place advertisements on currency.
Section 475 has TWO parts — the first one is your interpretation, but you missed the second part at the bottom.
From the actual law:
Part I:
Whoever designs, engraves, prints, makes, or executes, or utters, issues, distributes, circulates, or uses any business or professional card, notice, placard, circular, handbill, or advertisement in the likeness or similitude of any obligation or security of the United States issued under or authorized by any Act of Congress
or
Part II:
writes, prints, or otherwise impresses upon or attaches to any such instrument, obligation, or security, or any coin of the United States, any business or professional card, notice, or advertisement, or any notice or advertisement whatever, shall be fined under this title.
It’s all right there — illegal to advertise on currency. Why do you think the Secret Service forced Where’s George? stop selling the rubber stamps? It was NOT because of the defacement issue (Section 333), but because it’s illegal to advertise on currency (Section 475). Otherwise, don’t you think all the big corporations would be doing it? That’s why it’s illegal.
hahahaha sorry but you burned the hell out of brian… just saying…