Boma'jus'Luvs dem chick'afinners!

The above graphic is of a frozen food sold by a German company - "Obama Fingers" - 'deep fried' chicken and curry sauce. Normally, such a thing wouldn't find its place here, but in light of yesterday's post on the importance of naming products, I thought this would further serve underscore the message - "know the name before naming."

Evidently the company was informed of the racist overtones of "Obama Fingers" rather quickly and adopted the stance of "Wha?! I, we, uh, just figured it'd be a...uh..way to...uh...gee whiz! We didn't know!"

Oh well. Lesson learned.

Oh! Just heard about a new Salty Snack to be marketed in Europe - they're hell-bent on dominating the category and ridding the shelves of inferior snacks.

I guess they're preparing a huge marketing blitz for Poland.

A big ol'glass of Crayon™

The graphic above is from a website promoting an extremely good idea - "healthy" drinks for kids that don't include High Fructose Corn Syrup (code name: Sugary Crap).

There are three groups of Enterprise that seem to embrace Sadvertising as a practice - Politics, Churches and Health Food. All three have the potential to do real good in the world but sweet jimminy, they can trip over themselves...

http://www.drinkcrayons.com

This post is written with empathy. I've named products before. The feeling of watching said product roll off the assembly line and into the marketplace is at once exhilarating and terrifying. Suddenly, "the smartest guys in the room" can look like utter boobs - "Hey Gary! Did you know that new sandwich we named means Explosive Diarrhea in sanskrit? It's on Fox right now..."

Ya'know, parents try to keep their kids from EATING Crayons. Now, they can drink them. And kids - never trust kids in a Focus Group - they think everything is cool as long as it isn't homework, grandma's perfume or broccoli. The second mom starts insisting, "Drink your Crayons! I paid good money for that and you're going to drink every last can!" Crayons™ is going to crumble.

But what a great idea - the company's vision, formulation...and surely taste, all rock! Wish, hope, pray that the beverage is a success, but am concerned that a long-term brand can be built on such colorful novelty.

I hope I have to eat my words - grilled with capers, honey and cracked pepper.

crayon photo courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/laffy4k/404313786/

Note: A Sadvertising reader remembers eating crayons as a kid. He puked.

Note: A client just suggested Huggies® baby food. Hmmm. Would be especially poignant in "Creamed Squash" flavor...

Note: A Sadvertising reader wonders if "...it tastes like Puce?"

Is ANYONE making 5-star "I love it!" videos any more??

The graphic above is a screenshot from a Foxnews.com news video player. The story is of a "brutal jail beating" of a 15 year old girl.

I gave it three stars - "It's ok."

The beating was alright I guess - a little heavy handed. The two-camera action gave the clip impact. But CNN.com videos have voice-narratives, beating Fox to the punch, every time. I would have rated it higher if we would have had an explosion or maybe some pit bulls.

Sorry Foxnews. If you want consistent 5-star ratings on your stories of violence and decay, you're going to have get up to snuff on what makes "I love it!" video.

And if they're not going to get serious about "I love it!"-level evil, why...then...they can just ram their 5-star rating system down their throat and measure audience response with web stats like everyone else!

Doctors among us?!

The ad above is for Clinical Therapy Skin Protectant Body Lotion by Vaseline®. I scanned it from the back of the January 2009 Reader's Digest.

Interesting layout - the graphics show how one smiling woman infected "an entire town" with the idea that they need Vaseline®...on various parts of their body. Though the Vaseline® people are rather impressed at the woman's ability to transmit their product, I got a little case of the creeps wondering how many of these people were slimed against their will. Especially on people's faces and tattoos.

I get this vision of the grinning woman hiding behind a shrub in the park, a handful of Vaseline® at the ready, waiting for her next victim...

But that's beside the point.

The reason that this ad is ©Sadvertising is on account of the fine print off to the left of the ad. It reads:

"Vaseline® is a registered trademark of Unilever®. These are real people. None are doctors."

Again - "...these are real people. None are doctors."

Now, I've flunked a few IQ tests in my day, but it appears to me that, according to the Vaseline® marketing department, Doctors may not be real people!

Sweet Jimminy! This just hit me...if doctors aren't people, what are they?? And does this woman know something that we don't?!

Alright real people - you heard it here first. If the Alien Doctor Overlords try to rise to power, get to Walgreens FAST! Men, slather your women & children first - make sure to cover the tattoos, too!

POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

Pip squeak!?

Note: I know I'm a guy and there's a lot about girls toys that I don't understand.

That being stated, I don't understand this toy. The video above is of a Baby Born® doll. It belongs to my 3 yr old.

On any other day, a squeeky-toy baby activated by crunching its arm would be written off as just goofy. Especially this thing - the manufacturers are quite proud of the fact that it eats, poops, drinks, pees and cries...which, ironically, are the least desirable aspects of babies.

But today, my wife was busy flushing its 'food' out of the complicated array of valves and tubes that make up Baby Born®'s vaunted digestive system - so the goop wouldn't spoil and start to stink (which ironically would be even MORE realistic).

Anyway, she looked up at me and stated rather proudly, "Hey! I found out how to get it to squeak with delight!" and proceeded to force Baby Born® to emit these creepy 'eep! eep! eep!" noises.

"That doesn't sound like 'delight,' honey..."

"That's what the manual says they are!"

Manual!? What kind of baby toy needs a manual?!? Well, evidently those strange squeaks are supposed to be 'delightful.' Dunno...if any of our kids would have started making those noises, I wouldn't have called them 'delight', I'd have locked the rest of us in a room and called a priest!

"Father Brownstein?! Yeah...she...it's POSSESSED! Come quick! I think it's heard us! AaaHHH!"

"eep...eeep...eeep...eeep."

Hmmmm. The next section, "Comforting Baby Born® When She Cries." Evidently squeezing her OTHER arm makes her cry.

And when you yank her leg, she sprouts leathery wings, grows fangs and spits fire.

Naw. She just pees.

A pizza by any other name...

The ad above is from Life Magazine, November 5, 1965. It's for Jeno's Pizza.

Do you remember this stuff?! Sweet jimminy, can you imagine THAT (look at the photo on lower right) passing as pizza?! More like Ragu® on a Ritz®!

Well, "back in the day", Jeno's pizza-in-a-box was high livin', I'm sure. Today? Pizza just ain't pizza without sixty pounds of cheese and enough grease to light up Chicago. Jeno's tomato-stained disk is a far cry from the franchise-fueled fill-fest of today.

But - and this is coming from a guy who's been a victim of hundreds of pizza photo shoots - the strange thing is that someone, somewhere, looked at that photo and thought, "Yeah. That's a goooood-lookin' pizza. Let's use THAT one. Yeah. That one. It'll be great!"

And someone else pinned, "Oh yeah! It's makin' me hungry just lookin' at it!"

Reality is relative. Makes ya'wonder what people 40 years from now are going to be thinking when looking at food photography from today. It's far better to look back on the paltry pizza of 1965 and think, "Is that all there was?!?" than fast-forward to 2049 and know that some starving, post-apocalyptic shelter dweller is salivating over an old Pizza Hut flier.

Bah. We're modern Romans. We should be happy that we don't have to spear Mastodons for food and clothing.

It's actually a great time buy.

Just to be fair...and honest, this current "economic climate" is a great time for customers, clients and patients.

I mean...geez. People are freakin' grateful for business and gratitude does amazing things to people's attitudes, loyalty, productivity...

Now is a great time to buy - what we need - and reward those who service those needs with loyalty and enthusiasm.

Note: From a Sadvertising reader: "Ahhh, never thought about it that way. Would probably explain why I even had great customer service from my health insurance company this morning!"