Sunday, March 20, 2011

When brands lose their way.


The photo above is from a Sadvertising reader.  He was cleaning out the garage and found this old suitcase.

The brand name is "Amelia Earhart."

This from the same people that brought you Titanic Cruise Lines, Jim Jones' Party Punch and the Windows™ Vista® powered pacemaker.

Marketing guy:  "Let's name it Amelia Earhart!  It'll stand for adventure, independence, spontaneity!  A perfect travel brand!"


Pragmatic guy: "Amelia died, lost somewhere in the Pacific on one of those adventurous, independent..."


Marketing guy: "Niche market!  We'll target people who secretly hate their..."

Thank you Sadvertising reader.

To said Sadvertising reader's wife - if your husband ever offers you a dream trip so you can, "spend some time alone, re-energize and find yourself," he's going to be in Vegas for a long, long time.

Saturday, March 05, 2011

How to do a proper Movie Poster


The scan above was sent to me - it's a poster from an Eastern movie and quite possibly the greatest movie poster, ever.

Why can't American flix have such awesomeness?    Black clad villains with tomahawks tucked into their belts!  A mustached hero who's unashamed to use the toilet!   Bullets flying!   Mountainous...hair!  Geez.  Right away, the expectations are set - we KNOW what this movie is all about.  No mere "serving suggestion," this flick is about bad guys, gunplay, going to the bathroom and glorious HER!

And I bet it's all over in less than two minutes.

Hollywood just doesn't get it.



Giada De Laurentis' has MACROCEPHALY (I'm a doctor, yay!)


While shopping at Target® the other day, a cardboard point-of-sale unit fairly caught my eye and went, "AAAACK!"

For a second, I thought, "Oh great.  The Oompah Loompas caught the Branding bug."  But then, the truth hurt - Giada De Laurentis merely caught a bad case of Macrocephaly - you know, the disease that suddenly makes your head the size of your forearm?

Weird.  Of course, there's the option that Giada stood over the intern's shoulder shouting, "Bigger!  Bigger!  Make my head BIGGER!"

Go ahead - click on the photo and enlarge it.

Poor girl.  But one day, she'll make an awesome Macy's parade float.