Tag Archives: advertising

Any Way You Choose

Posted by Piscis on

CookieDoughColdstone

 

Apparently, some time between my recent visit to Cold Stone and the last time before that, there was a period where they did not serve cookie dough as a topping.  Which on one hand is a shame, since I pretty much always get cookie dough as a topping there (yes, yes, judge away), but on the other, could just mean that I have good timing when it comes to ice cream.

I almost took this seemingly reasonable and informative sign in stride until I noticed the hilariously unnecessary use of the word ‘ultimate’.  It’s as though the sign-writer got most of the way through the sign before suddenly realizing that it was wasting the opportunity to remind everyone of how amazing and hardcore ice cream is, and so hurriedly applied an arbitrary buzzword to something mundane and called it a day.

So there I am, awkwardly cracking up in the ice cream line in a pretty ultimate way.  You know how it is.

 

Bene ēdite.

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The Flavor of Oreos

Posted by Piscis on

Redundeos

 

Nabisco has been going crazy with their (often terrible) new Oreo flavors over the last few years, but the package that I picked up the other day seems to indicate that they’ve finally gone off the deep end: “Cookies & Creme” flavored Oreos.

Let that sink in for a minute.

When something is “cookies and creme” flavored, you know what that really means is Oreo-flavored-please-don’t-sue-us.  So what does that make these?

Oreo-flavored Oreos.

Nabisco is straight-facedly selling Oreos whose special flavor is Oreos.  They’re not even trying to hide it – for God’s sake, there’s a full-on Oreo in the background picture of what the flavor is supposed to represent.

Do you want to guess what these things taste like?

Did you guess Oreos?  Because it’s Oreos.  Oreo-flavored Oreos taste like Oreos.

Bang-up job, planet Earth.

 

Bene edite.

The Internet is Interesting

Posted by Piscis on

I received this curious envelope in the mail the other day:

 

Cable Envelope

 

I wasn’t expecting a letter.  And who’s it from?  Hmm.  Let’s see what’s inside.

 

Cable Ad

 

O.K., a pretty standard ad flyer for cable Internet.  But why was it addressed by hand?  They send out thousands of these things.  And why in an unheaded envelope?

Oh, wait, what’s that written at the top?

 

Ad Message

We just added the Internet at our place.  We never knew the Internet could be so interesting – and so fast!  Thought you would be interested.

—M

 

Well, then.  Who, indeed, could have possibly known that the Internet was interesting?  Who would suspect that there would be anything of note within the largest collection of information and widest array of communication that has ever existed on this planet?  And it’s fast, you say?  Then I sure am glad you just now added it at your place, M, and that you realized that I would be interested that the Internet is interesting.

This is one of the more harebrained (not to mention a little creepy) marketing campaigns I’ve seen from a large corporation, lately.  Note how they think they’re being extra clever by omitting a return address and just using an initial (because it must certainly be from that person I know whose name starts with ‘M’) – real people always send things to their friends and family as close to anonymously as possible, right?

I think it’s the bizarre sloppiness that strikes me the most, though.  They go through the effort of hand-addressing these and passing them off as coming from an individual, but that’s the message they choose?  The Internet is interesting?  I mean, it would be no simple task to convincingly convey why clandestinely forwarding an ad flyer through the post would be anyone’s means of broaching the subject of Internet acquisition with a friend, but I would expect something a little more creative than this bland, generic nonsense – that’s what the rest of the page is for!

Also, I kind of don’t live in Illinois.

But, on the other hand, this amused me enough to share it, so I guess their advertising dollars aren’t completely going to waste.  (>^-‘)>

 

Bene scribete.