Remember how when you were writing essays in school teachers would say that you should read your work aloud before handing it in? To see if you could catch any typos or strange-sounding phrases? Well, the nomenclature-smiths who came up with heartburn drug “Aciphex,” seem to have forgotten that important lesson. Watch the ad and you’ll hear what I’m talking about: “Fred, you have acid reflux disease. I want you to try prescription ass effects.” [More]
marketing
Beer Sales Drop, Brewers Scramble For Your Beer Money
By 5.31.10
In the past month, sales of premium light beers fell 11%, reports Advertising Age. Instead of light Coors, Miller, or Bud brands, people have been buying cheaper brews like PBR, or saving up for fancier brands. But we’re not just spending our beer money differently–we’re also drinking less of the stuff. Well, not me. But someone’s cutting back. [More]
HDTV Lies Exposed By Industry Expert
By 5.24.10
The next time you go shopping for a new HDTV, keep in mind that the brightness and contrast settings don’t adjust brightness and contrast, and most of the fancier-sounding image quality controls don’t do anything except possibly degrade the image. Also, motion blur in live video is largely imaginary, which is good because advertised response times are highly exaggerated. And hey, that impressive “dynamic contrast ratio” the manufacturer is crowing about? Most of the extra contrasty goodness happens when there’s no image on the screen. [More]
Apple Finally Drops "I'm A Mac" Ads
By 5.22.10
Apple has finally caught on to something many of us have known for years: John Hodgman’s befuddled “PC” is far more appealing than Justin Long’s smug “Mac,” so the “I’m a Mac” ads aren’t really very effective at converting PC-users to Mac fans. Well. maybe that’s not the official reason, but the company is still killing the long-running campaign
The ads have already been removed from Apple’s site, and have been replaced by the company’s “Why you’ll love a Mac” promos. Last month, Justin Long signaled the end when he told an interviewer: “You know, I think they might be done. In fact, I heard from John, I think they’re going to move on.”
Harper's Magazine: Insider Reveals How You Get Jacked When Selling Jewelry
By 5.19.10
Struggling to make next month’s rent, you might be tempted to dig out some necklaces and rings you don’t wear and try to sell it to your friendly neighborhood jeweler. But you might actually be buying a ticket to a sick magic show. The jeweler performs a blistering series of slight of hand tricks, whipping out calculators, spouting off fees, keeping your eye on the supposedly worthless diamonds under a tenth of a carat while double-deducting for the base metal. By the end, you slink out in a dizzied blur, accepting 1/5th of what the piece is actually worth. In this exclusive excerpt from the latest issue of Harper’s, ex-jeweler Clancy Martin takes you on a journey to the dark underbelly of the jewelry game. [More]
Ex-Jeweler Dissects "Buying Roadshow" Ads
By 5.18.10
The ads are cheesy as all get out: “Buying Roadshow” “Instant Cash For All” “Will pay up to 1100%” in giant block letters and starbursts. And the crazy thing is that they’re really good at packing in suckers eager to sell their “scrap jewelry,” dreaming of riches, but eventually convinced to be happy walking away with a few bucks. Over at Harper’s Magazine, ex-jeweler Clancy Martin takes apart these ads piece by piece and reveals what really goes on behind the black curtain. For instance: [More]
How To Spot Fakes When Shopping For Green Products
By 5.17.10
If you want to buy environmentally friendly products when you’re out shopping, you’ll find plenty of options these days. The trouble is that “green,” like “organic,” is considered a very loose concept by lots of manufacturers. The Chicago Tribune put together a list of ways you can spot the fakes on your next shopping trip. Here’s an easy rule of thumb: the words eco, earth, green, friendly, gentle and kind are all frequently used to give the impression of being environmentally friendly, but they’re essentially meaningless marketing words. [More]
Newegg: Buy Your Mom A Hitachi Magic Wand For Mother's Day
By 4.29.10
Newegg suggests you buy, among other things,a Hitachi Magic Wand for your Mom for Mother’s Day. Um. [More]
Franken and Schumer To CEO: We Hate Facebook's Privacy Changes
By 4.27.10
Recent and proposed changes to Facebook’s information sharing policies have Senators Franken (D-MN) and Schumer (D-NY) a little irritated. They’ve penned a letter, along with Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Mark Begich (D-AK), asking Facebook to reconsider their new opt-out procedure, and to take further steps to keep user’s personal details, such as their interests and friend lists, private unless they chose to share them. [More]
55th Floridian Dies After Being Tased, Should They Be Banned? Tasers, That Is.
By 4.27.10
Derrick Humbert, 38, became the 55th Floridian to die from a Taser. He was riding his bicycle and officers asked him to stop. Instead, he rode around the corner and fled through a yard. The officers in pursuit tased him as he tried to scramble over a fence, shooting 50,000 volts of electricity into his body. 28 minutes later, he was in a coma in the ambulance, and was pronounced dead at the hospital. [More]
Facebook Kills More Of Your Privacy For Cash
By 4.20.10
Yesterday, Facebook announced an awesome new feature that lets anyone see your current city, hometown, education, work, likes, and interests, even if you’ve set your profile to private. Will this benefit individual users and their friends? Not unless the only thing you remember about your dear friend is that they enjoy leather-play and you’re willing to scroll through reams of headshots to find them. No, this new privacy erosion is for the real clients of Facebook: advertisers, and the data-mining minions that toil on their behalf. However, there are two ways to be totally private. [More]
The KFC Double Down: What A Restaurant Does When It Gets Desperate
By 4.19.10
It seems like the best promotional campaigns for KFC in the past few years have been on South Park, and that’s despite the fact that Cartman is the chain’s most vocal supporter. An AdAge article today points out that Chick-Fil-A has been eating KFC’s lunch for a while now, and so far every stunt KFC has pulled–name changes, PR-engineered recipe events, botched giveaways, getting Oprah’s blessing–hasn’t stopped the restaurant from losing customers.That’s right: your lack of interest in KFC is what created this bundle of cheesy fried-fried in the first place. [More]
Loud Restaurants Make You Eat And Drink More
By 4.19.10
It turns out that, at least for smart restaurateurs, making the dining experience ridiculously noisy is good for business: people buy more drinks per hour, and they finish eating and leave sooner. [More]
McDonald's 10 Piece Nugget Box Shows 11 Nuggets
By 4.14.10
The picture on McDonald’s 10-piece chicken nugget box shows 11 nuggets. Obviously this is a careful piece of psychological chicanery so that consumers feel a subconscious longing for that “missing nugget,” sowing the seeds of future return trips to the Golden Arches. UPDATE: The mystery has been solved… one of the nuggets is cut in half, obviously to reveal its tender separated and recoagulated chicken meat goodness. [via Reddit] (Thanks to Bargaineering!) [More]
Man Gets Lockjaw Attempting To Eat Giant Sandwich
By 4.9.10
We expected this to be a lawsuit story, but its more like a marketing story. The Dallas, TX based sandwich chain “Which Wich” is naming a sandwich after Mr. Chad Ettmueller, a customer who experienced lockjaw after trying to take a bite of a really big sandwich called a “Wicked.” [More]
Drug Company Gets Approval To Sell Crestor To Healthy People
By 3.31.10
Don’t have high cholesterol? Think you don’t need Crestor, a cholesterol-lowering statin? You may be in for a rude awakening. Astra Zeneca, the maker of Crestor, has received approval to market the drug to healthy people as a preventative measure. And before you ask, yes Crestor does have side-effects. [More]
AirTran Makes Fun Of Southwest Seating In Commercial
By 3.31.10
If you’ve ever been part of the mad dash for seats on a Southwest Airlines flight, you might find this video from AirTran funny. In it, mooing passengers race down the jetway while a Southwest employee makes ridiculous jokes. Meanwhile, AirTran serves its assigned-seat passengers Kool-Aid. Wait, now I’m confused about who’s being mocked here. [More]
The Census Is Getting Weird With Its Marketing
By 3.30.10
“Nobody expects the U.S. Census! Our chief weapon is surprise!” A Seattle blogger posted a photograph of a fortune she received in her fortune cookie recently, and it looks like the Census is using surprise fear and surprise surprise, fear, and a ruthless efficiency to remind people to send back their forms. Oh, and they’re ruining fortune cookies. I fully expect to be forced into a comfy chair soon, which all in all isn’t a bad way to be tortured, so meh. [More]
