We admire the enterprising spirit of this family, who decorated their van to maximize their Girl Scout cookie sales, promising delivery and seven delicious flavors. Our staff mostly consists of retired Girl Scouts, and we believe in supporting them, no matter how much it costs. Then we learned where the reader who submitted this photo spotted the van: in front of her gym. [More]
marketing
Brands Are Scanning Your Selfies And Party Photos To Look For Their Logos
By 10.10.14
Let’s say that you’re a brand, like Nabisco or the North Face, and you want to see what people are saying about you online. You could do a text search of Facebook and Twitter, but that’s soooo 2009, and you can’t guarantee that people will always label the photos they take. Instead, third-party companies are slurping up every public photo that you upload online and scanning them to see what you’re eating, drinking, and wearing. [More]
Would You Buy A Johnny Rockets CD Or Toaster?
By 10.8.14
Would you go see a drive-in movie where carhops bring you food from chain diner Johnny Rockets? That’s in the works, as the brand plans to extend itself beyond its 330 existing restaurants. How about a fast-casual “express” model serving the same food more quickly and without waiters? How about Johnny Rockets branded small appliances and frozen food? This is all coming soon, starting in 2015. [More]
Retailer Forgets To Check The News, Sends Email Welcoming An Independent Scotland
By 9.19.14
The staff over at Made.com in the United Kingdom were apparently up too late glued to the TV last night to see whether or not Scotland voted to become a separate country. Because while Scotland decided to stay in the UK, a marketing email sent bright and early this morning welcomed a new country to its rolls — Scotland. Well, this is awkward. [More]
Spirit Airlines Promotion Tries To Cash In On Nude Photo Hack Story
By 9.4.14
While some people may be feeling sympathy for the celebrities whose naked photos were hacked over the weekend, one company appears to be turning it into a cringe-worthy marketing campaign. [More]
Comcast Commercial Claims Their Fast In-Home WiFi Can Make Your Offline Game Work Better
By 5.28.14
Comcast’s been irking a large segment of the internet again this week. This time, though, it doesn’t have anything to do with their pro-merger mania, their stance on net neutrality, or the problems with their actual service. The latest kerfuffle is all about a thirty-second commercial — one that doesn’t even seem to get the basics of its own technology right. [More]
This Sleazy Pitch Embodies The Worst Side Of Online Advertising
By 5.20.14
Every day, our inboxes are slammed with laughably bad PR pitches that range from the unrelated — “tell your readers to check out our booth at the International Fly Fishing Film Festival” — to the hyperbolic — “this tip-figuring calculator app will literally change the way you dine out!” We don’t share these with you because, well… they’re just awful. But we recently received one that was both insidious and all-too-indicative of the ways in which marketers dangle money in front of blogs in order to get them to deliver on-message content. [More]
No Device Is Safe From Verizon’s Enhanced Program Tracking Your Every Online Move
By 5.8.14
It’s no secret that consumers’ online habits influence the advertisements they’re shown while surfing the internet. But Verizon Wireless just upped the ante when it comes to sharing your online activities with marketers. [More]
Maxwell House Coffee Settles For “Good,” Not Great Or Awesome
By 4.16.14
Young adults are no longer interested in mediocre coffee. As far as Maxwell House is concerned, that’s okay. They don’t need the cool kids with their pour-overs and their burr grinders. Their new marketing campaign targets customers who want coffee that’s just, you know, good enough. [More]
Samsung Needs To Stop With The Sexist Marketing Already
By 4.3.14
Okay, the electronics industry in general isn’t known for its commitment to progressive views on gender. As Samsung has become a global brand, though, people are noticing the subtle and not-at-all subtle sexism of their advertising. [More]
This Brand Video Stands For Everything And Nothing
By 3.26.14
Last month, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency published a very simple, very funny prose description of the world’s most banal promotional video for a brand. What brand? What are they selling? It doesn’t really matter, and that was the point: a montage of stock footage of positive images and ethnically diverse smiling people can sell anything. Now the piece has been brought to life…by a stock footage firm. [More]
Predictive Models, Secret Scores: How Computers Decide Who You Are & What To Sell You
By 3.20.14
Savvy consumers all know that their lifetime debt history ends up in their credit score, and that lenders use that score to try to predict if someone is a good bet for a big loan like a mortgage. But even the most-connected consumer may not realize how many hundreds of other scores we all now trail in our wakes too, thanks to the advent of big data. Do you know, to the last decimal, how likely are you to buy jewelry? To sign up for cable? To have a kid in the next year? Someone, somewhere, is tallying all of that information about almost everyone. But good luck finding out what’s out there, who’s scoring it, and if your numbers are even actually about you at all. [More]
Science Tries To Prove That Confident Consumers Are More Likely To Switch Brands
By 3.11.14
Say you’re faced with making a decision between multiple brands or change service providers. Your willingness to seek variety, or make a change — even if it requires additional effort — may be tied to how confident and empowered you feel at that moment. [More]
Girl Scouts And Mattel Team Up For Barbie-Branded Activity And Patch
By 3.6.14
The Girl Scouts: they stand for wholesome, educational, and fun childhood activities. Right? Generally, yes, and even without coating every visible surface with pink sparkles. A new set of Barbie-themed activities and patch for the Daisy and Brownie levels (kindergarten through third grade) has horrified some critics, who think that the toy-maker’s influence is bad for girls’ self-image. [More]
After A McMocking, McDonald’s Provides A Straightforward Answer To Simple Question
By 2.17.14
Last week, we poked fun at McDonald’s for not only taking nearly a week to respond to a simple question about dipping sauces, but for turning that response into one of the most convoluted marketing messages we’ve ever received. After getting some Egg McMuffin on its face, the fast food giant has finally provided a more straightforward response. [More]
McDonald’s Answer To Simple Sauce Question Shows Why People Hate Marketing Execs
By 2.13.14
Though it was never as popular as BBQ or sweet and sour, McDonald’s hot mustard dipping sauce (not to be confused with honey mustard) for its McNuggets had been an option for decades (and wasn’t so bad when used in combination with the BBQ sauce, according to someone I know who looks a lot like me). Last week, some readers wrote in saying they were being told that McD’s had stopped offering hot mustard, so we sent off a one-sentence comment request to the company… We shouldn’t have been surprised by the nonsense response we eventually received. [More]
Single Women With Baby-Making Siblings Are All The Rage In The Travel Industry
By 11.4.13 — Updated: 10.14.16
Here I am, a single woman with a career, lying around on heaps and heaps of money. But since I don’t have kids of my own, who can I spoil with all these riches? The nearest available child might do, but the travel industry is betting I’ll throw down my dispensable income to visit my nieces and nephews so I can ply them with presents like any childless aunt would. Heck, maybe I’ll take them to Disney World.* [More]
Report: Pro Athletes Are Mostly Shilling Junk Food To Kids
By 10.8.13
One of the perks of being a professional athlete is that you get paid the big bucks to endorse products, based on the premise that your fans will buy anything you put your name on. But one report says those lucrative endorsement deals are often tied to unhealthy foods marketed toward kids. [More]
