Invasion of the Bubble People

The graphic above is a screenshot of the Purell hand sanitzer's website.

Of course, you notice the little guy with the booger blow. Having a bit of experience with situations as shown, I know what comes next - wiping of the goopy hands on pants and hair, then spilling of the milk and holding up arms for a hug.

Kids can be gross.

But snotty children don't qualify as "sadvertising" - Purell's crappy slogan does. "Imagine a Touchable World."

Say it again - "Imagine. A. Touchable. World."

Well, it's come to this - we're now a creation of phobes, so imprisoned by our fears that our best life comes from imagining existence without filth. Especially the skin burning, plague inducing, feverish boogers of little kids.

Child to Parent (speaking through a hermetically sealed glass partition): "Mommy? What was life like before we became safely sealed in our Purell® tanks?"

Parent to Child: "Well dear, we were surrounded by things. Horrible, untouchable things!"

Sweet Jimminy...and then, Pfizer (Purell's mothership) has the gall to give us 99 reasons to use their deadly goo. Click this post's headline for the whole list - don't miss #53 medicine balls (they're dripping with irony, you know) Or #81 school bus seats...yeah, that'll work - slather cooling, fuming Purell on our kids' pants.

And #96 - tickets. A friend of was given tickets to see Celine Dion...and threw up. I guess he didn't use enough Purell. Thank you, Purell. Next school carnival, we'll just carry a bucket of Purell® to splash the kids when they win big at ring-toss.

This type of goofy fear-baiting is the real filth here.

Interesting fact: Pfizer® manufactures Sinequan®, a drug used to treat Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Brilliant, actually.

Hmmm. Right now, I'm imagining a world that embraces OCD as a natural talent and the Chosen Ones can be productive in society, keeping our tickets and medicine balls squeeky clean.

Microsuck.

Microsoft won't really be serious about bringing truly clever advertising until it incorporates the "pull-my-finger-while-I-fart" joke into a campaign.

That'd REALLY be great.

Anyway, nice job, Apple. Great spot.

Yet ANOTHER man enters the frame...

The graphic above is from CNN.com's website and advertises more news regarding Michael Jackson's "death."*

But this post isn't about Michael, his bulldog-faced dad or Rev. Jesse. It's about "another man" - the nameless guy in the middle.

It's sad, really...when you're posing between two legendary publicity hounds and the largest news distributor in the world won't even get your name. "Another man..." I bet he's walking in the front door, head hanging low, thinking of all the millions he COULD have had. Hmmm. I also bet his wife is standing in the kitchen, arms folded, growling, "Get back out there and don't come back until you get us a Reality Show!"

Poor dude. And it looks like he was so ready for the moment - shades, open collar, great-looking blazer...Oh well. Back to whatever "another man" was doing last week before his big break came and went.

*Why the quotation marks? Well for one, The Gloved One's star just got an obvious boost. But I'm holding out the crazy notion that somewhere, he's sitting at a Burger King with whatever's left of his fortune in his pocket, reading classified ads for home-employment in Thailand.

BREAKING NEWS! A Sadvertising reader JUST stated that "another man" could be Michael Jackson's REAL killer!

Sweet Jimminy! This could be huge!! You heard it here first, folks!!

Update: Two hours later, we get a NEW POSE, but the same old "another man." What the heck is Jesse staring at, anyway?

I want to see them all doing the moonwalk.

Is your wife dry and lifeless?

The above ad is from my stack of old Life magazines...for the life of me, I forgot which one.

Anyway, back in my Man Classes I remember when the instructor - Sylvester Stalone, btw - warned us about women who let their skin get dry, leathery and reptilian. He basically told us to get out, then and there.

"Keep checking that skin!" he warned. "Once middle-age comes around, it can go bad in a heart beat."

I have a buddy who makes a good living as a Divorce Lawyer - since I read this ad, I now understand why he uses "Palmolive!" as a curse word.

Not that I'd know - my bride works hard to keep her skin saturated and animated. Like she should. But I did accidently brush a middle-aged woman at the grocery store - left me with a nasty scrape and a trip for a tetanus booster. Sweet Jiminy, it felt just like falling down on the sidewalk.

She wore a wedding ring - poor guy.

Not every itch needs to be scratched

The graphic above is the cover of the book, "Knitting with Dog Hair."

It was given to me by my allergist. It's produced by the people who make Claritin. Ha ha. Just kidding. But the book's for real.

Have to give the author credit for "thinking outside the box." But who wants a coat that attracts cockleburs and ticks? And what about getting caught in the rain? I can imagine walking in the entryway and feeling the urge to shake the water off. Geez, and I bet it'd smell just like a wet...dog.

But, I'm open minded. I wonder, if I had a dog sweater, would I want to chase cars?

Requiem for Direct Mail.

The above is a scan of a Direct Mail piece for a local chiropractor.

The copy tells the tale of a woman concerned with her daughter's migraines. The copy also tells the tale of a crappy copywriter who believes this chiropractor's audience has the IQ of a worm (worms are spineless, ha ha ha).

Here it is:

"...She was suffering from an excrutiating migraine. She was vomiting, experiencing blindness and numbness so I called the emergency room..."

Ok. I'm with the story. Drama, urgency...I'll keep reading.

"...but by mistake dialed the wrong number. On the other end was a chiropractor..."

Sweet jiminy. Missing 9-1-1 and getting a chiropractor?!? The writer might as well have written that on the other end, Jesus answered the phone and he was riding a rainbow colored unicorn. Wait. It gets worse. Better. Whatever.

"I almost hung up, but I was ready to try almost anything so I set an appointment."

AN APPOINTMENT. You know, if my daughter is vomiting, blind and numb, and I call up ER and get a "chiropractor" I am not going to dink around and set a freaking APPOINTMENT. I'm going to hang up and bang 9 1 1 1 1 1 until the ambulance arrives.

The saddest thing about this shlock is that the chiropractor who paid for this tripe also authorized this tripe. And that makes this particular piece of Direct Mail, truly Sadvertising.

And the crappy 80's clip-art models are wearing clothes cut from lousy waiting-room furniture. Probably the chiropractor's.

Shmuck. Junk mail like this makes me sad. I know where it comes from - some faceless direct mail service that targets niche markets with promises like "$99 for 1000 pieces!" and "Average rate of response, 34% - pays for itself immediately!" Bah. Half tempted to call the chiropractor and ask, "Is this really, truly representative of YOU?!"

Hope he still has his furniture.

Forced sterility.

The photo above is of a pack of Eclipse cinnamon mints my daughter insisted upon at the grocery store. It was only after we got in the car that I noticed it contained the same promise as Lysol® disinfectant - notice the arced type, "Natural Germ Killing".

Sweet Jimminy - ten years ago, I predicted little pills that would turn human flatulence into wafts scented with designer fragrances. "Honey, did you start wearing Chanel No.5?"

But never did I figure that Modern Marketing™ would figure on "germ killing" as a product attribute for a checkout aisle breath mint. Yeah, yeah - halitosis is caused by bacteria. But any 13 year old will tell you that the human body is rife with lil'critters and short of cremation, the condition can't be helped.

But (and there's always a 'But' at the end) the "germ killing" power of new Eclipse mints is Natural, as opposed to UNnatural, which would be more like gargling with napalm.*

I hope the jump from "anti bacterial" to foodstuffs stops at Eclipse mints. But, we'll know we're in for the long haul when Jack Daniels comes with a sticker that says, "Kills germs on contact!"

*Ok, everything is technically Natural. Napalm is solidly comprised of organic compounds and could therefore be legitimately marketed as natural.

100% Natural Germ Killing Napalm - Sounds nice, doesn't it?

UPDATE:  Wait.  Swine Flu is a "Germ".  Let the hoarding begin - these little suckers might end up being $100 a tin if things get worse!

If you make a claim, be the KING.

The photo above was provided by a Sadvertising reader (x'd to protect his innocence). He discovered the KISS restaurant CHAIN while on holiday in the Phillipines.

On a purely serious, erudite and academic note, the developing world is full of quirky misuse of the Universal and Omniscient Language of English. Though asking for "Flied Lice" at a Chinese restaurant will likely always be hugely funny, stuff like "KISS - King of Balls" is...well, I wouldn't be surprised if the chain is owned by some Harvard MBA who fancies him/herself a whiz at branding.

"Funny. (yawn, take the pic). Let's go to McDonalds."

What I don't get is the logo. Something about that asymmetric crown didn't make sense until I tilted... those aren't balls that have been kissed - they're balls that have been SMACKED!

Bureaucracy. Suddenly EVERYONE wants one.

The above photo is of my kids' toothbrush. It's a parting gift after paying the dentist seven gajillion dollars to remove two teeth.

I shouldn't complain - the toothbrush was "free" and all that. But the imprinting is nothing less than weird.

"From Your District Dental Society."

Oh yeah! MY District Dental Society! And not just the local chapter or some rank-and-file member, but the District!

'Been wonderin' just what in Hades they were up to - lying low, sifting plans, waiting for the right time to make their move...

Suddenly, it seems that every governing body out there has been flexing muscle, showing their teeth. I'm going to watch this "District Dental Society" a little closer. Today the Toothbrush, Tomorrow, white-coated Commissars in every neighborhood "encouraging" us to keep our appointments...

In the meantime, I wish I could remember the name of that dentist who took my last seven gajillion dollars.

Kids are different today.

The above ad is from a 1943 edition of Popular Science magazine. It's for "Douglas Shoes - America's Best Known Shoes."

Those were the days, eh?

Here's the headline: A Little Boy's Dream Came True

Here's the inset copy: "When he was only 7 years old, William L. Douglas was "bound out" to his uncle, a shoe maker. Day after day, he pegged shoes in a shadowy attic. It was hard, technical work but he stuck to it..."

Stop there. I think the copywriter was intending to draw the reader into young Douglas's plight and pluck. Sweet jiminy! Is that how it worked back then!? Today, American 7 year olds sure aren't worrying about qualities of Perseverance or Work Ethic. Gawd love'em, but my kids think the attic is for Christmas decorations, not "being bound out."

No, little Douglas was Enterprise personafied. In a "shadowy attic" no less! We all know that great things start in Shadowy Attics by "bound out" grade schoolers. Right now, I'm looking at my Florsheims and wondering what Mr. Florsheim did to earn HIS cred. Maybe he killed cows for their hides with a hammer. At age 4.

Oh well. That was 1943. Things were different. Back then, any self-respecting toddler had a job, you got your vitamins from eating grass, your minerals from sucking on nails. Today? If little Douglas was forced to be whacking shoes in an attic, his uncle would be in jail and his aunt would be on Oprah.

Crazy.

Anyway, Googled® the key words: "child labor shoes" and found this pic. Looks like the next Nike or Rockport might be hard at work in India.

OMG! (slaps forehead). And they're taking American jobs, too! I'm gonna march right home now, rip the Wii controllers out of their chubby little fingers and lock'em in the attic - "Daddy needs new shoes!"