Texas hedge fund manager Bill Perkins dropped $80,000 — of his own money — to take out another full page ad in today’s New York Times.

Why?

To ask simple, potentially inflammatory, questions about the use of the TARP bailout funds.

Here are the questions to date:

Question #1: Does anyone else find it troubling that a government bailed out bank (Goldman Sachs) is buying a European Energy Speculation Outfit?  It’s your money!!!

Question #2:  Why is the U.S. Treasury hiding how the banks and AIG are spending our money (TARP)?  It’s your money!!!

His goal is to raise public awareness that the Feds might not actually know how and where our tax dollars are being spent, and the American public is purposefully being kept in the dark.  Presumably, it’s because the government doesn’t know how the funds are being spent, or worse, they simply don’t want us to know.

And all this time I thought all hedge fund guys were evil oil speculators who played the real life version of Mr. Burns (from The Simpsons).  Guess I was wrong on that one.

Would you Drop $80k on Advertising for the Greater Good?

This guy might have unintentionally caused one of the great ethical debates of 2009.

Ask yourself this simplistic question:

If you had the financial capacity to drop thousands of dollars on an advertising campaign to increase public awareness, with no intention of benefiting your own personal finances or becoming an overnight celebrity… would you do it?

I think I probably would.  Or at least I like to think that I think I would.  As we all know, it’s one thing to jump off the high dive and quite another to say we’re going to jump off the high dive.

In terms of advertising on this magnitude (e.g. $80,000 per advertisement), I would probably have to be in the low double digit millionaire range before I would attempt something on Mr. Perkins’ scale.

Billionaire T. Boone Pickens certainly stepped up to the plate in 2008 at the height of the energy crisis by creating the wildly successful Pickens Plan.  But I struggle to identify anyone else who has found substantial success in a multi-pronged advertising campaign with the sole intent of gathering supporters to raise public awareness and insist that the government make changes to antiquated policies.  Other than the massive media blitz in electing President Barack Obama of course.

Aren’t Newspaper Ads Dead?

I might be the new kid on the block when it comes to blogging and social media, but I do know that newspapers are slowly going extinct.  Even the once mighty New York Times has taken it’s lumps in the last decade.

With that in mind, why not link up with as many social media gurus or like minded bloggers, and put the word out online instead?  Most people that I’ve encountered who have strong disdain for the TARP program are primarily in the non-baby boomer category (I’m sure there are a few exceptions) who will actually have to pay back all of this newly acquired debt.

So why not start a blog called Tracking The TARP or TARP Watch, find a few fanatical writers and pay them pennies on the dollar to do their thing?  Just seems like a better use of funds to me.

I bring up this example after watching Gary Vaynerchuk’s talk at the INMAN Real Estate Connect NYC 2009 Conference, where he disclosed his results using traditional media versus Twitter.

I spent $7500 on 3 things to advertise a free shipping code to my website — a billboard on the New Jersey Turnpike, direct mail, and a radio campaign.  I collected 170 orders from the billboard, the radio campaign did 240 orders, the direct mail did 302 orders.  I Twitter’d out 1700 orders in only 24 hours.

Enough said!

[Video: Minute 31:00 for Twitter vs. Traditional Media excerpt]

Granted, Gary has a huge web presence and is one of the best public speakers around, but creating online collaborations with like minded people who will carry on your message is certainly more effective than a full page ad in the NY Times.

Or am I wrong?

***

The full CNBC video with Bill Perkins debating the authenticity and effectiveness of his transparency campaign can be seen at this CNBC link.

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