This year three housemates of the Australian Big Brother will be voted into the house by audience based on videos the potential housemates have submitted and can be watched on the official site. As you would expect, potential housemates have created pages on MySpace and Facebook, and/or Facebook groups, in an attempt to push their profile and encourage people to watch their video and vote them into the house.
However, some potential housemates have also purchased advertising space on Facebook to promote themselves. I've seen one or two examples and thought it was odd but never actually took a screenshot, but fortunately Behind Big Brother did too a screenshot of one:
Computer geek Scott from Queensland has bought out a Facebook ad driving people to his audition video in a bid to get on the show. Based on Facebook ad rates, he’s probably paying a minimum of $10 a day to have the ads appear on Australian profiles.
Behind Big Brother also spotted another example:
Another housemate wannabe has put an ad on Facebook, this time Tony, a 26-year-old virgin from QLD.
Tony’s ad did not include a photo and was simply text, which displays on random Australian Facebook profiles.
Tony appears slightly less annoying than Scott ... , but says he’s comfortable with himself and that an interesting trait is that he is “random.”
Read more about this on Behind Big Brother here.
I'm not sure what this says about Big Brother contestants, Facebook, or Australian society, but I'm not quite comfortable with this for some reason. Why do I feel it is ok to have a profile or a Facebook group, but not ok to pay for advertising space?
Update: Scott has a second Facebook ad (the same as above except without a photo) and a website - http://www.scottperry.com.au/:
Another potential housemate, Andrew, also has a Facebook ad:
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