Experian (EXPN): Dancing mortgage girls pay our bills!

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Experian LSE:EXPN logoIn true blogger fashion, I'm walking into a Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) to drop some pseudo-science over the WiFi last night, when I'm drawn to a busy ad on the side of a phone booth. A mess of white folks (hey, some of us check for that sort of thing) are spread around a park, picnicking and sunbathing, playing Frisbee -- you know, doing park-y stuff.

One gentleman, alone on his blanket, is framed by some cubic bubbles (or perhaps he's about to be jumped by a gang of marshmallows). The ad copy instructs, "MARKETING DOLLARS ARE TOO EXPENSIVE TO WASTE ON EVERYONE." No revelation that, but sure, it's a lesson that bears repeating.

So who's the advertiser? Experian Group (LSE: EXPN).
Experian is a Dublin-based "global information services company," a component of London's FTSE 100, even. In essence, Experian traffics in consumer data. Last week, it launched a new corporate identity, "A World of Insight," branding itself so as to convey its "dynamic growth, global reach and position as the global leader in providing information services."

A LowerMyBills.com advertisement from Experian.But it's expecting a lot with this targeted-marketing jive. You see, Experian also owns LowerMyBills.com, making it responsible for possibly the internet's most notorious scorched-earth advertising campaign, lampooned last week on satire website The Onion -- Mortgage Market Collapse Threatens Nation's Banner Ad Industry.

Ho ho, classic stuff. Except that it's not quite a joke. As Doug McIntyre pointed out last month, big search engines like Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) are vulnerable to losing serious coin if these sacked subprime mortgage lenders and credit rating houses start tightening their ad budgets.

And it's hardly just the web's majors -- The Onion may be one of the few free-content sites that doesn't run these absurd ads. Take a quick look around BloggingStocks -- you won't have to hunt long to find the LowerMyBills.com perpetual dance team, or a LendingTree Flash animation or a jumpy Capital One (NYSE: COF) banner. Citing Nielsen/NetRatings, Doug points out that along with troubled lender Countrywide (NYSE: CFC), Experian, Capital One and Lending Tree are all among the internet's largest display and search advertisers.

Let's hope they never close the doors at the University of Phoenix -- we may all be out of work.

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Last updated: February 10, 2010: 10:03 AM

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