We're havin' SNACKS!

The above graphic is a package of "snacks" that I received aboard an Alaska Air flight.

What are they? Why, they're Snacks, of course. You know - Snacks!

A "mix" of Snacks, actually. Premium ones, too. And in case you're still wonderin', these Snacks are Great Tasting. And, you should also know something else about these Snacks - these Snacks are a "Custom Blend"! Imagine - a Custom Blend of Snacks! You won't find another bag of Snacks like these Snacks, anywhere else!

Obviously, some person of refined tastes oversees these particular Snacks to make sure they meet a high standard. The graphic designer also holds these Snacks in high esteem - note the Purple bag = Royalty - red & yellow accents add for excitement...THIS MUST BE THE GOOOOD STUFF! There are "snacks" and then there are THESE Snacks.

If you show up at the Oscars or at The White House and ask, "Where are the snacks?" You'll be served THESE Snacks. Probably.

What are they? They're SNACKS!

All this writing about Snacks is making me hungry...(time warp to call home to see what's for dinner).

Ooooh! We're having FOOD tonight. Premium, custom-blended FOOD!

Oh'yeah...a big, steaming, hot plate of FOOD.

Want some Food?

CNN - The Most Trusted Name in Time Travel"™

The above graphic is from a CNN.com post on the discovery of a new dinosaur.

Did you know the new dinosaur was "brightly colored"? CNN does.

Evidently, "The Most Trusted Name in News" got its slogan from developing some pretty fantastic means of reporting.

He he...I have this vision of a hookah pipe sitting in the middle of CNN's news bureau while sitar music boings away in the background...

Unforgivable - the cologne for the cold and lifeless.

The graphic above is from a Younkers™ ad flyer - it's a promo piece for "Sean John's" new cologne, "Unforgivable."

Ya'know, if Mr. John walked into my office with the burning desire to create a personal fragrance, I would have...


A. ...suggested a different name than a name that represents the final judgement before being cast into an eternity of horror.

B. ...chosen a different photo than the one that looks like I'm snuggling down with a bunch of dismembered women.

C. ...told the woman in the upper left to cop a different vibe than the "I'm gonna cut you!"-thing she's got goin' on.

D. ...suggested he not try to spell "Orgy" with the lame-ass art direction (come on, ad people - it's funny in the conference room, but it just makes us all look stupid in the next industry-expose-d'jour book).

AND THE GRAND FINALE...

E. ...suggested any quote other than, "LIFE WITHOUT PASSION IS UNFORGIVABLE."

According to Mr. John, a dispassionate life of boredom is the heart of his cologne.

That's right - "Life without passion" is about his cologne, Unforgivable.

I've butchered my share of words in my career, but I haven't yet tried to kill a product with its own slogan.

Well...

Maybe...maybe I'm being a little harsh.

On second glance, look at Mr. John's face. Surrounded by what appear to be gorgeous half-naked women...he looks rather, well...passionless.

Hmmmm.

Maybe he's just being honest.

And honesty in advertising? That's forgivable.

Target: WOMEN.

The image above is an ad for Target® and it was found on the back of a Northwest™ Airlines in-flight magazine.

It's a brilliant ad and I hate it, too.

It's brilliant because it captures a vibe so darned well - red, white, hip, fun, with-it. It's also a visual burr; dangit if it's extremely difficult to keep from looking at the thing. There are so many questions, unfinished stories in this ad, it's impossible not to wonder...

Who are these people?
Why do they need warehouse dollys?
Why are they running?
Why is there a pay-phone?

Good photography, excellent art-direction and amazing copy (he he).

It's brilliant! Really...and I'm not just stating that. This is a very, very good attention-getting ad. Target is fighting for the same customer as Wal-Mart. If it were your choice to identify with a Wal-Mart customer versus one of these hip, with-it Target customers, who would you choose?

Exactly.

But, the guy?

He's...well...well...well...well, judging by his legs, I figure he's not making much money as a male model - at least he's not spending his money on food. I'm wondering if he's got the muscular ooomph to push that cart very far at all.

And his "I-cut-my-hair-with-some-shards-of-glass-I-found" hairdo doesn't do the ad any good, either.

Oh well. Guys aren't this ad's target audience - women are. And this is the guy that Target chose as a good guy to put on an ad that targets women.

So. This is the guy.

THE guy.

This is the Target guy.

No muscle, no tone, bad hair.



Honey, I'm finally HIP!

He finally landed.

The graphic above is Robert Scott - pilot, ace and author of the book, "God is my Co-Pilot."

He was my hero...and if you're looking for a hero, you would do well to call him your hero, too.

The world is less, now.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/02/27/scott.obit.ap/index.html

My Juicy Ass Needs Depends™

The graphic above is from a Victoria's Secret® banner-ad on Fox News.

Say what you will about the practice of printing words on buttocks, but the word "Juicy" doesn't belong there.

Think about it - you look at someone's ass and think, "Juicy"?!

"Juice" is a liquid - typically, an aromatic, ripe, liquid.

Aromatic, ripe liquids + ass = diarrhea

"Look at my ass! It's JUICY!" In other words, "Look at my ass! I haven't been this Juicy since I was 5 months old!"

Yeah, and you've probably got a fever of 103+ and you should be trying to keep that all-important fruit-juice from blowing out your orifices.

Sometimes, I wonder if one of these days, popular culture is going to take a big ol'enema.

Now that'd be Juicy.

Dove® Promises (part 2)

***If you work for Dove chocolates, read the post below this first. THIS post is for a handful of readers who were less-than-impressed with the "academic" nature of the critique against Dove's® goofy chocolate wrappers. They wanted dirt. And dirt is what they shall get.

That being stated...

The above graphic is a scan of four Dove® dark-chocolate wrappers. Inside each wrapper is a saying intended to illicit some kind of a response from Dove chocolate customers.

Egads. I sure hope Dove® chocolate customers are smarter than average, because these sayings amount to nothing but bad advice. Baaad advice - as in, this is the kind of stuff 13 year old girls pen in the back of their Jr. High Annuals.

Here they are...

1. When two hearts race, both win.

No, when two hearts race, both do NOT win - at least the odds are good that one will lose. I had a buddy in college get a girl pregnant. Enough said.

2. Be mischievious. It feels good.

Being "mischievious" may indeed feel good, but what's the point of feeling good when a cop is walking up to your window with his hand on his Glock and the other forming a leather-gloved pointer? Then again, maybe Dove® is talking about farting in some else's office cubicle...in that case, it's still bad advice as farting is not so much mischevious as it is plain ole'rude.

3. Love without rules.

WTH?!?! "Love without Rules" may work in the insect kingdom, but not with people. Start taking out all of the "rules" of Love like commitment, honor, respect and selflessness and you pretty much end up with that scene in Fatal Attraction where the psycho woman kills the family rabbit and... ah, why am I even argueing this point?! This was definitely written by the Patchouli & Hemp set that names their "love children" after radioactive elements and fruit.

4. Wink at someone driving past today.

"Hey! Bubba! Wake up! See that there ol'Suburban back there? She done WEENK at me! Ah'swair! Ah'm gunna slow down some..."

Wink at someone on the road?! Only if you can steer with one hand and shoot with the other.

Again, in all seriousness, these wrappers could have been done so much better - to feature the excellent product, reinforce the ocassion - without the juvenile platitudes.

Nevertheless, I've scarfed down 6 of those delicious dark chocolates today and they could have been wrapped in cat hair for all I care - they taste great!

Dove Chocolate® - Indulgences that could be sweeter.

The picture above is a scan of Dove® dark chocolate wrappers. The printed messages are on the inside of the wrapper.

The first wrapper states, "When two hearts race, both win." The second wrapper states, "Wink at someone driving past today."

Dove® chocolates are good. REALLY good. Especially the dark chocolates. But these labels are dumb.

NOT necessarily dumb because both pieces of advice are silly - "Both hearts racing" works for deer and deer hunters. "Winking at someone driving past" can lead to an exchange of pepper spray.

These labels are dumb because they do not connect the customer with the product in a way meaningful enough to warrant Dove® paying for the Promises® registration. Here's why...

The premise is good - create a way for customers to connect the product to the primal driver within the customer. That "primal driver" is a spirit of indulgence, of luxury. However, there are some hurdles to get past - chocolate is fattening, relatively expensive and unnecessary. By associating a clever phrases that incite "indulgent thinking" (passion, mild naughtiness), Dove® hopes its customers embrace this little bit of fun and associate it with the Dove® experience.

But, these cute sayings fall way short of the mark. Again, the advice is bad. But even WORSE (from the marketer's point-of-view), the advice doesn't make the reader think about Dove® chocolate!

Dove® could have had much better Promises®.

"This chocolate might be the naughtiest thing you do this afternoon. Eat two."

"Go ahead. You're skinnier than her, anyway."

"You have to work hard for chocolate like this, so the calories don't count."

"Take me shopping (hunting, fishing, climbing, working, etc.)"

(sigh)

Clearly, the copywriter was working over their lunch hour on this stuff and probably not eating chocolate.

In the meantime, I'm hoping the next wrapper my wife gets says, "Get a job to pay for the engine overhaul on the wreck laying in the garage."

Now THAT is indulgent thinking.

And I'd buy her Dove® chocolates. Often.

So, hey baby...you..uh'fly here often? *hick!*

The graphic above is from the Safety Card of an Airbus 320.

I finally succumbed to the urge to actually read one of these things and the picture above just cracked me up.

If you've flown at all, chances are good you've experienced, "Drunk-on-the-airplane-guy" before and the good people at Aero Safety Graphics have him NAILED.

He's been pounding Hot Wings and Miller Lite for 6 hours, waiting for his delayed flight and now, he's talking to imaginary sales contacts.

"Ya'know...our XL490 series blows the ASS...blows the ASS!...off HP's whole g-damned server archite-ture...ya'know?! Ya'KNOW?!"

The tie is perfect, too.

Thank you to Susan - the courteous flight attendant for letting me walk off the plane with this little gem.

Bling Bling, Ka-ching, Ka-ching.

The graphic above is a poster that accompanied a "Bratz™" toy doll - a doll marketed towards girls aged 6-10. According to the Bratz™ official website, the Bratz™ girls have a, "...passion for fashion.™"

Having a more than passing interest in marketing, I decided to do a little research on Bratz.™ According to Delia Bourne - Marketing Manager for "toy giant Hamley's", "We find Barbie is popular with girls under six, whereas Bratz are dolls with attitude that children of today aspire to."1

Read that again -

"...attitude that children of today aspire to."

Read that again -

"...attitude that children of today aspire to."

Read that again -

"...attitude that children of today aspire to."


Oh...read that again. One more time for old-time's sake:

Read that again -

"...attitude that children of today aspire to."


So, children of today aspire to turning themselves into sexual fishing lures?!


It goes back to that quote from Ole'Hitler - "If you tell a lie often enough, people will believe it to be true."

If you believe that Bratz™ are what kids want "nowadays," then soon enough, some snake-minded marketer will cram it down our throats...and vice versa.


Girls, put the dolls down and go outside and play in the fresh air.



1.) SOURCE: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=370946&in_page_id=1766&ito=1490