Hot Wings, YEAH!

The scan above is from a poster found at a "SportClips" hair-cut franchise.   It advertises a promotion where - well, there's a contest and the winner gets $10K.

"What would you do with $10,000?"

Well, clearly, SportClips believes its customers would do the smart thing and buy ten grand worth of chicken wings.  Well, duh!  Who wouldn't?!?

"HEY'BABE!  I JUS'WON TEN THOUUUUSSAN DOLLURS!  WE'RE RICH!  GES'SUM HOT WINGS!"

Geez.  Everyone knows SportClips customers are Beer Bongers.  Eff the hotwings (those are for the fat girls at Regis).

Geez.  Or a dream date with Snooki.

$10k worth of hot wings.  And Snooki.

Livin' the dream, man.  Livin' the dream.

Warning: Photographer may cause unintended acceleration.

The ad above was sent in by a Sadvertising reader who saw the ad above and just had to exclaim, "WHOA!  Slow down there, hombres!  You're movin' too fast!"

But, maybe that's because this particular group of Dentist's "Brand" is all about neck-bending acceleration!  Kind of like when we were kids on the school bus.  Time ticking, waiting for the train to pass, then the caboose finally goes by, the bus driver drops the clutch and in a giant yellow lurch, all the kids snap their necks.

Poor Dentists. Clearly, they'll need a chiropractor.

Or a photographer that doesn't have a rocket sled in the studio.

"Titles" ARE important.

Don't ask "Why...?"  Some things are just better off a mystery.

But, I will bet you, as they say around here, "Dollars to donuts" that there isn't a single child in the known universe who's begging dad to, "Please, please, please read The Lonely Troll!  Read the Lonely Troll!"

This combination of title and illustration drips ennui like mayonnaise sandwiches left to ferment in a hot trunk.

However, considering that criticism should never be tendered without a solution, please accept the following:

Update:  note to the sadvertising reader who just emailed, "Why yes.  I AM bored today. Like a lonely troll."

Update:  geez. Am I supposed to be funny ALL the time?!

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.

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.

Now THIS is brand consistency!

This was just sent in from a sadvertising reader - the screenshot above is from Toxic Waste candy, a favored deviance of nine year old boys.

The screenshot below is from Wallet Pop, demonstrating the definition of the word IRONY.  See - they just got busted for having LEAD in their candy.  Talk about TOXIC WASTE.

 I can see the VP of Marketing, standing before the lawyers explaining how "No, no, no, you've got it all wrong!  See, we're building a BRAND, see?  We're just bein'real, see?!"

And where do you think this stuff is made?  Three Mile Island?  Chernobyl?  Hiroshima?  Naw.  The suits chickened out and went with the low bid from Pakistan.

In the meantime, I'm dusting off my idea for lead Legos®.  Nothing says 'quality' like metal, ya know?  And I think they should be scented sour apple and cherry.  You know - just to smell good.  For the kids.

Next, them damn Swedes.

The photo above was sent in by a Sadvertising reader.  His daughter brought it home.

 Being of French descent, he found it amusing.  Married to a Latino, he found it disturbing.   As an American, however, he was outraged that a Salon (of all places!) would be so bold as to work to wiping out one of our Nation's founding nationalities.

He's up in arms about this - "Hitler tried it with machine guns, now Studio 35 is trying it with flammable liquid!  Can't we just GET ALONG?!"

I told him to leave it be - everyone knows the best way to get rid of Poles is to throw Pierogi's on a busy highway.

And he, of course, was calmed a bit after realizing Poles can't read anyway.

R.I.P. = the United Colors of Terror

According to the Department of Homeland Security, the beloved, trusted Terror Colors are being retired this April.  This attempt must surely go down in history as one of the strangest ad campaigns in American history.

The principle was solid-enough:  assure citizens, illiterate or not, of their risk of random death/injury by a color chart.    "Today's a red day, kids.  No kisses until I see kevlar on mommy's little bunchkins!"

Now, the chart was a sincere attempt to inform but it lost any credibility when NO ONE saw a GREEN DAY.  Sweet Jimminy - did anyone ever see BLUE?!  Geez, I don't think we ever left Orange!  Maybe you were like me, staring wistfully at the color chart while TSA went through your stuff, dreaming of those carefree GREEN days as a kid, running through the meadow with your best friend Chip and his dog Shep...

But, I guess with the passing of this silly system, I truly mourn the ability to bid on the job on the first place.  Maybe I'm crying sour grapes because they didn't like MY idea.

It was better, don't you think?

It's not even funny.

The YouTube above is...not funny.

Gawd, I wish it were merely some ill-conceived ad or marketing gizmo. But it isn't. It's 2:25 of incomprehensible ramble. Kind of like listening to a small-town drunk rave about Plato's Republic between burps.

If anyone can make sense out of this blown fire hydrant of gobbledegook, they should write on their driver's license, "Donate my brain to Science."

(sigh)

Every time a copywriter tortures words, baby kittens cry. And not just any baby kittens - the really, really cute ones with rainbow hearts that heal sick orphans and fart pixie dust.


I promise the next post will be funny again.