Tone Deaf Company

A memorandum

2006-12-20T14:22:00.000-05:00

To: All Christmas advertisers

From: Tone Deaf Company

Re: All of our souls

To whom it may concern,

For the love of God, please stop using the iconic images of our holiday celebrations, whether they be old or new, in your awful attempts to sell your stupid products. It just hurts. It hurts us, and it hurts you. So let's never do this or this again.

Thank you. And happy holidays.

Sincerely,
TDC

PS: We're back.

Pay Per Link

2006-04-26T12:56:00.000-04:00

New Yorker article on attempts by big broadband companies to institute "tiered access" for online browsing

For too long, the internet has tried to get us to think that the sites offered by regular, non-paying entities (like people) are just as valuable as those offered by warm, loving corporations. Finally, Congress is going to step up and remind us of the important truism that AT&T Knows Best. We weren't that used to have to think of the internet as being a free-for-all of ideas that allows all different views to be exposed. And if we were, we'll get over it lickety-quick. I mean, who would want to go to Wikipedia when you could check out Microsoft's glorious Encarta online?

This just goes to prove what I've always said: the internet hates freedom.

Leonardo DiCaprio's Star Wars collection

2006-03-21T16:18:00.000-05:00

It seems Leonardo DiCaprio has decided to liquidate his Star Wars collection. I realize this post is off topic, but I don' t care.

Check out this impressive collection.

"That was just a game, Centauri!"

2006-03-10T15:02:00.000-05:00

Lara Craft: Tomb Raider. Resident Evil. Wing Commander. Doom. In the past few years, a whole cottage industry has developed in the movie business of turning video games into movies. And the results, pretty much entirely across the board, are awful. Sure, there have been bad video game movies for a while (Super Mario Bros., Double Dragon, etc). But as executives realize that video games are here to stay, and that the people who grew up playing games in the 80s continue to engage them, companies have been pouring more time and money into video game movies.

The question is: why are they so goddamn stupid? People who play video games don't want to see the story that they played through in the game up on the big screen - we already saw that story, and it was more fun the first time when we had an active role in it. If these companies had any sort of sense, they would realize what gamers want to see: movies about people who play video games getting sucked up into real life variations on the action.

It seems so fucking simple. What was so awesome about the first Matrix movie? It made hackers, computer geeks, and anyone disaffected by modern society to think, "Holy crap...that could be me." Well, that's what gamers want to see. "Hey, that dude plays video games like me...and look, he's flying a spaceship now! He's actually doing spy missions! That's awesome. I'm seeing this movie at least ten times in the theaters." All you need to do is look back to the halcyon days of 1983-1984 and see three examples of movies that totally fucking worked because of this conceit:

WarGames - kid uses 8 inch floppy disks and pre-Prodigy dial-up connection to hack into the NORAD computer and almost starts World War III. Computer gamer playing war simulation --> real life war situation. Movie is awesome. Everyone aged 25-34 knows it. (Bonus: Pre-Ferris Broderick; in-her-prime Ally Sheedy; the two computer nerds who talk about "the back door"; "wouldn't you like to play a nice game of chess?"; the irrascible Dabney Coleman.)

Cloak & Dagger - kid plays Atari games all the time; ends up with an Atari cartridge that contains top-secret data; must navigate through perilous situations with his imaginary superspy friend to stop total disaster. Atari gamer playing spy games --> real life spy situation. Movie is awesome. Everyone aged 25-34 who remembers it loves it. (Bonus: Post-E.T. Henry Thomas; the three-fingered woman; the Alamo; the extremely depressing subplot of Davey's imaginary superspy friend being the same actor as his absentee dad; the irrascible Dabney Coleman, in TWO roles.)

The Last Starfighter - plotwise, probably the best of the bunch. Teenager in Trailer Park Town, Nowheresville, Midwest, is a master at a spaceship arcade game. Crazy alien in a car comes down, tells him game was a training simulator for actual space fighting. Teenager ends up flying an X-Wing knockoff in a huge space battle. Arcade gamer playing space fighting game --> real life space fighting situation. Movie is awesome. Everyone aged 25-34 who has seen the movie speaks of it with a gleam in their eye, remember when they wished they too could have been swept up into a giant space battle. (Bonus: The Music Man in the Obi-Wan role; the running subplot of the robot Alex who has to stay behind in the trailer park and pretend he's regular Alex; the sort-of-cheesy-but-still-sort-of-awesome Tron-esque special effects. Unfortunately, no Dabney Coleman.)

Think about it. If Hollywood remade any of these movies (or at least lifted the concept from them), they'd make a fucking killing. Maybe they could do a movie about a MMORPG player who gets sucked into a fantasy world like Norrath or Azeroth. Or how about someone who loves Splinter Cell-type games, and ends up being recruited by the miltiary to run covert-ops on a top-secret mission? Maybe a criminal organization starts recruiting gamers who are stellar at causing mayhem in Grand Theft Auto. If done well, a movie like this could become the new Matrix. And if it's just some little piece of mediocrity...it still has a better chance of capturing the imagination of the gamer audience than some shitty Uwe Boll movie.

From the annals of Tone Deaf history: Johnny Turbo

2006-02-15T02:06:00.000-05:00

Do you know about Johnny Turbo? If not, it's time to educate yourself boy. Johnny Turbo is among the most shittiest tone deafiest ad capaigns ever targeted at a video-game playing public. Basically, it's a rediculous attempt by the Turbografix 16 people to discredit Sega's vastly more successful Genesis system through the use of an obese, mal-adjusted cartoon character and his ambiguously gay Tucker-Carson-Lookalike sidekick. Yeah. For real.

You can read the original comic strips, as they appeared in gaming magazines in the early 90s, here, along with a profane, and highly amusing running commentary.

Finger lickin' stupid

2006-02-01T13:35:00.000-05:00

There's a new KFC ad out on TV. Thankfully, it does not involve an animated, jive-talkin', hip-hop (or "hip and happening" as USA Today apparently described it) Col. Sanders. Those days are gone. But I couldn't find an image of the new ad, so you get to be reminded of those. Call it the ghost of stupid ads past.

Anyway, this new ad goes something like this: a mother brings home a bucket of greasy, poorly prepared "chicken" from a KFC. She puts it on the table as the husband hovers around, probably waiting to talk about his golf game or how she never shows him enough physical affection anymore. The mother calls up to the kids that they need to come downstairs for dinner. The kids bomb downstairs, out the door, and into the car. The mother looks at the father and says something like, "Well, they'll have to get used to eating in," as they show one of the kids (who looks to be around 8 and already 30 pounds overweight) scrambling to get his seatbelt on.

So...apparently...this family only eats out. All the time. To the degree that their mindless children have the Pavlovian response of running out to the car for dinner. It isn't even like they say, "Get ready for KFC"...which still wouldn't make sense, because, correct me if I'm wrong, KFC has been a take-out place for its entire existence. And I love that the kid they emphasize is fat. Are they trying to corner the market on fat kids? That's probably a good move...they eat a lot and there's a hell of a lot of them in America.

What exactly are they trying to advertise here? That you can bring KFC food home now? Or are we to believe that this family used to go out to regular restaurants every night, and now they're cutting costs and staying classy by getting KFC instead? Why don't you buy a fucking breast of chicken and drop it in the oven? Maybe your butterball of a kid won't need an angioplasty before he's twenty.

(And, in honor of Mr. Shannon, here's a page about KFC wrongdoings that go beyond being utterly tone deaf.)

Invitation:

2006-01-29T16:38:00.000-05:00

Loyal Readers:

Now that I've lured you in with this picture of an adorable baby, let us get down to brass tacks. I heareby invite you all to nominate you're own:

TONE DEAF COMPANY!!

Here's your chance to pretent you're one of the SELECT FEW who get to contribute to this HIGHLY SELECTIVE news service. One such entry will be SELECTED and be deemed a winner of the TONE DEAF COMPANY ("TDC") Reader Contribution Award. You're prize will be a free lifetime subscription to this web service. This entitlement will become increasingly valuable (as the subscription costs for TDC are projected to rise exponentially over the next few years). This prize could be worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars, assuming certain variables align in the proper manner and etc. etc.

Thank you.

Commence.

Fumbles

2006-01-17T17:16:00.000-05:00

Sports figures can be very effective spokespeople in ads. They're well known and lots of people like them just because of the laundry they wear a few times a week. And of course when you sign an athlete up to be in your ads, you, as a company, have to recognize that the audience's reaction to said ads will vary depending on the ups and downs of any given athlete's season.

But for the love of God...can someone stay awake at the switch and use their common sense when booking broadcasting time for such ads? If something traumatic has happened to a team's fanbase, using a spokesman from said team can just lead to resentment and hatred. How do you think Philadelphia Eagles fans felt when they spent the last eight weeks of the season watching Campbell's Chunky Soup ads with Donovon McNabb over and over and over again during every football telecast, knowing that he was chilling somewhere recuperating from season ending surgery. I bet that people from Philly never found the "It's from New England? Well I like it anyway" line to be that funny; after their season went down the tubes, it was about 30 million times less funny. Do you think they're running right out to get some Vegetarian Vegetable to go with their hoagies tonight? Probably not.

Similar instances:

-The day after the Patriots crash out of the playoffs against the Broncos, there were repeated airings of the incredibly lame and moronic Diet Pepsi Machine ads (featuring random members of the Patriots) and the actually-pretty-humorous-but-still-ill-timed Tom Brady Visa ad. We'd be much more receptive to your pitch about the different levels of Visa protection if you hadn't spent the night before skipping passes and lobbing INTs.

-The painful, daily drilling of the locally produced Kevin Millar KFC ads during the stretch of the 2004 Red Sox season when he couldn't buy a hit if he was a millionaire at a Cheech 'n Chong film fest. I'd watch Millar ground out weakly to the shortstop and then be subjected to him in a dingy KFC wearing a shirt that made him look like a date rapist talking about how his fast food fried chicken needed red socks. If there weren't already a thousand reasons to hate KFC, I would have grown to hate it just by having to deal with the agony of these ads every single game.

-After Peyton Manning choked huge time Saturday, Colts fans were treated with this little gem from MasterCard: Not Perfect. Yeah, that's a good way of shoring up the customer loyalty of the Manning fanbase...openly mock a dude for falling apart in the playoffs yet again.

(Unless...unless this was meant to shore up the anti-Manning audience, which might be bigger than the pro-Manning one. The jury is still out, but this may be my first example of a Perfect Pitch Company.)

The Screwed-You-Again Edition

2006-01-09T10:54:00.000-05:00

If you're like me, you tend to conduct your holiday shopping by buying things for other people that you yourself would like. Some call this selfish and/or self-centered...I prefer to think of it as making informed purchases. If you are further like me, you tend to lean heavily on DVDs as a staple, a solid foundation on which you can build your gift edifice. While doing so, you may have noticed a disturbing trend in DVDs. Note:

Tommy Boy - Holy Schnike Edition

Airplane - The "Don't Call Me Shirley" Edition

Office Space - Special Edition with Flair!

What the hell is this crap? Why does every DVD release have to have a stupid "edition" name that refers to one of the lines of the movie attached to it? Are we supposed to look at the box and say, "Oh, yeah, I remember when that guy said 'Don't call me Shirley'...sure, I'll buy this"? I can't wait for this trend to continue. The "Offer He Can't Refuse" Edition of The Godfather. The "Here's Johnny!" Edition of The Shining. Chinatown: The "She's My Sister AND My Daughter!" Edition. Raging Bull: Special 30th Anniversary "You Fuck My Wife?" Edition.

Or, wait, maybe they have to put stupid names on these to let you know that these are new releases of these movies, tacking on some unnecessary and likely hastily put together extras to make up for the fact that in the nascent days of the medium they rushed out crappy transfers of these movies. It's almost as if the studios are drawing attention to the fact that, just as record companies botched the initial pressings of CDs, they screwed over consumers with the first run of DVDs. They may as well call any of these The "Remember When You Paid $25 For A Shitty Version? Well Pony Up Again, Sucker" Edition.

LOADED! with a DOLLAR!

2006-01-06T06:07:00.000-05:00

I was amused by McDonald's new ads for their arch card. The ad goes something like this:

"Buy our overpriced Chicken Selects, and you get a McDonald's ARCH CARD! LOADED with A DOLLAR!" This card, apparently, is not only good for purchasing McDonlds, but it's also, somehow, important to having good times.

Well, anyway, I wasn't too impressed with the prospect of getting an arch card LOADED!, with A DOLLAR!, and I was a little put off by the whole ad campaign, so I went on Micky Dee's website. What I found there is funnier than any TV ad. This company, my friends, is the epitome of Tone Deaf.

They've established separate web pages for black people called "365 Black." There's also a web-site with the catchy name "i am asian." To round out the minority baiting, they've got "Lomxomo" to appeal to the hispanic crowd. Companies need to learn that people see right through this sort of targeted marketing. It's clearly comittee-driven, focus-grouped slop that doesn't resonate with anyone. Looking at these web pages, it's all I can do to imagine the boardroom meeting of portly, cynical white men that precipitated these sites.

Overstock.com: Realm of the insane

2006-01-01T12:55:00.000-05:00

The CEO of Overstock.com, Patrick Byrne, recently held a conference call with investors in which he claimed to have made up stories about his own cocaine use, and homosexuality in order to unearth a secret cabal of shortsellers led by a "Sith Lord" who were conspiring to sabotage his company.

In addition, Overstock doesn't seem to be filling orders very well these days.

Read More.

Like a goddam roach...

2005-12-17T04:24:00.000-05:00

Cracked Magazine, the venerable, and entirely unfunny Mad Magazine ripoff, probably best known as a throwaway Bart Simpson reference, is back from the dead. Like a roach, this miserable rag simply WILL NOT DIE. Back when I was eight, after I'd read my MAD magazine cover to cover, I would buy this trash out of sheer desperation. Even then I knew it wasn't even marginally funny. Now it's back with a new website. I invite you to experience the bottom-of-the-barrel humor of Cracked. If anything you read in Cracked makes you laugh out loud, as god as my witness I will give you a bouquet of diamond rainbows.

Heil Ditler

2005-12-12T19:36:00.000-05:00

The Simon Weisenthal Center protested to the South Korean embassy in the U.S. against two clubs in Korea which used Nazi symbols for decor. The Weisenthal Center demanded the intervention of the South Korean government to close down the 'Hitler Techno Bar and Cocktail Show' and the 'Gestapo' billiard club. Following this protest, the club owner announced that he would change the name of the club from 'Hitler' to 'Ditler'.

Keep reading, it's worth it.

2005-12-07T22:51:00.000-05:00

From The Official Website for Vincent Gallo Merchandise

Vincent Gallo's Sperm

$1 Million

...Sperm is 100% guaranteed to be donated by Mr. Gallo who is drug, alcohol and disease free. If the purchaser of the sperm chooses the option of natural insemination, there is an additional charge of $500,000. However, if after being presented detailed photographs of the purchaser, Mr. Gallo may be willing to waive the natural insemination fee and charge only for the sperm itself. Those of you who have found this merchandise page are very well aware of Mr. Gallo's multiple talents, but to add further insight into the value of Mr. Gallo's sperm, aside from being multi talented in all creative fields, he was also multi talented as an athlete, winning several awards for performing in the games of baseball, football and hockey and making it to the professional level of grand prix motorcycle racing. Mr. Gallo is 5'11" and has blue eyes. There are no known genetic deformities in his ancestry (no cripples) and no history of congenital diseases. If you have seen The Brown Bunny, you know the potential size of the genitals if it's a boy. (8 inches if he's like his father.) I don't know exactly how a well hung father can enhance the physical makeup of a female baby, but it can't hurt. Mr. Gallo also presently maintains a distinctively full head of hair and at the age of 43 has surprisingly few gray hairs. Though his features are sharp and extreme, they would probably blend well with a softer, more subtly featured female. Mr. Gallo maintains the right to refuse sale of his sperm to those of extremely dark complexions. Though a fan of Franco Harris, Derek Jeter, Lenny Kravitz and Lena Horne, Mr. Gallo does not want to be part of that type of integration. In fact, for the next 30 days, he is offering a $50,000 discount to any potential female purchaser who can prove she has naturally blonde hair and blue eyes. Anyone who can prove a direct family link to any of the German soldiers of the mid-century will also receive this discount. Under the laws of the Jewish faith, a Jewish mother would qualify a baby to be deemed a member of the Jewish religion. This would be added incentive for Mr. Gallo to sell his sperm to a Jew mother, his reasoning being with the slim chance that his child moved into the profession of motion picture acting or became a musical performer, this connection to the Jewish faith would guarantee his offspring a better chance at good reviews and maybe even a prize at the Sundance Film Festival or an Oscar. To be clear, the purchase of Mr. Gallo's sperm does not include the use of the name Gallo. The purchaser must find another surname for the child.

**Clicking "Buy Now" will charge a $1,000 deposit via Paypal. The remaining balance will be due by cashiers check, wire transfer, or personal check and is due within seven days of purchase date. Item will ship when full payment has cleared.

Can you hear me now? Wait, I don't have a cell phone.

2005-12-06T22:56:00.000-05:00

I was at the mall the other day with my family, and we were all, "I'll call you wife, and daughter you call mom, and mom, I'll call son." And we're all set to meet up when we're done shopping... but then I realize... there's a problem! I don't have a cell phone. Somehow, over the last, oh, eight years, it just slipped my mind. Then, get this, I realize, my family doesn't have cell phones either, and they're all "wait, I don't have a cell phone!"

It's fucking crazy!

We're at the mall, making plans to call one another to meet up when we're done shopping, when all of sudden we all realize NONE OF US OWN CELL PHONES! It's INSANE.

Two words.

CHRISTMAS GIFT!

Okay, in all seriousness, either you know the commercial I'm talking about, or you think I'm a babbling idiot--it's this verizon commercial where this family all realizes none of them have cell phones. And it's fucking dumb.

Who can relate to this? Who the hell doesn't have a cell phone yet? And if you don't it's either because you can't afford one--in which case this commercial is irrelevant, or because you're intentionally not getting one--in which case this obnoxious family isn't doing anything to convince you.

Louis Vitton's Mario Kart, powered by Lexus

2005-12-06T15:30:00.000-05:00

Video game ads work, study says - The Boston Globe:

Part of the reason is that video game advertising has evolved beyond a billboard ad on a screen. Now, companies can feature dynamic commercials and intertwine their brands into the story lines of games, such as a murder victim who was about to sign a contract with fashion designer Lacoste in the ''Law & Order: Justice is Served" game. Meanwhile, Bang & Olufsen will showcase its high-end electronics stores along with Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer in Tycoon City: New York, an Atari game due early next year.

Good, I can finally get that sense of realism I've been looking for when checking the time in Tycoon City: New York. And I could never possibly play as Det. Ed Green if he's wearing anything less than a full LeCoste ensemble. Oh, wait, I don't care about any of that...because I'll never ever play those games. When will someone conduct a study that concludes that advertising is more effective when used in a good video game that people actually want to play?

TDC v. SNL

2005-12-04T11:00:00.000-05:00

Clearly the SNL writers have been reading Tone Deaf Company. Not only did they comment on X-Box crashes, they made a joke about the teen-repellent "mosquito" device and jazz records.

This unattributed appropriation must stop!

;)

I'll move to any town with free nachos... takers... no?

2005-12-01T22:40:00.000-05:00

CHICAGO (AFP) - A Texas town has changed its name to DISH in exchange for 10 years of free satellite television service.

All 125 residents of the town formerly known as Clark will get basic service and a free digital video recorder satellite TV receiver, a move that has some people joking that the Fort-Worth suburb will become a town of couch potatoes.

"We joke that in ten years everyone will come out and say wow when they see the light," said secretary Michelle Going, 32.

read on.

Teenager Repellent.

2005-11-30T08:41:00.000-05:00

From the NY Times:
...Mr. Stapleton has...fashion[ed] a novel device that he hopes will provide a solution to the eternal problem of obstreperous teenagers who hang around outside stores and cause trouble.

The device, called the Mosquito ("It's small and annoying," Mr. Stapleton said), emits a high-frequency pulsing sound that, he says, can be heard by most people younger than 20 and almost no one older than 30. The sound is designed to so irritate young people that after several minutes, they cannot stand it and go away.
Read the full article.

I know it might be wrong

2005-11-29T14:25:00.000-05:00

I thought we had escaped this travesty, but appraently it has returned. It's the Dr. Pepper ad that uses Fountains Of Wayne's Stacy's Mom and goes a little like this: bunch of young (maybe 12-ish years old) boys are hanging around after soccer. Stacy's Mom starts playing. This plain looking woman gets out of a mini-van and in slo-mo walks around to where the kids can see them. Wind is blowing her hair and shirt around a little. She kind of looks over at them semi-seductivel, then opens up the door of the minivan to reveal a bunch of Dr. Pepper's inside. Chorus kicks in, kids freak out with glee, Mom looks satisfied with herself.

Here's what I get from this ad: Dr. Pepper is as good as pre-teen sex. If you can't bone your friends mom, at least you can drink a DP. Which ad exec was watching Court TV coverage of the Debra Lafave case and thought, "That's it! That's the brand image we want"?

And I know this is probably shallow and chauvinistic, but the woman in the commercial is really plain. (If anyone can find a cap of her, let me know.) She's not someone you would ever spend any time fantasizing over, even if you were a teenager and constantly horny. It's almost as if they got to the shoot and realized, "Wait a minute...we're equating our soft drink with statutory rape. Maybe we shouldn't use this supermodel babe here." So they grabbed the makeup woman's friend and threw her into the ad. So now you have an ad that not only has tasteless implications of sexual felonies, but also is nonsensical on a narrative level. Just awful. Wouldn't you like to be a Pedo too?

iBible

2005-11-28T18:21:00.000-05:00

"The new line of fashionable iConnect Bibles feature the hottest covers. Available in a sleek and simple design--similar to the popular iPod(r)"

Link

Ra Ra Cialis!

2005-11-28T11:47:00.000-05:00

From the NY Times:

Drug companies seeking attractive sales representatives have opened a recruiting pipeline to top college cheerleading squads.

Read the the full article.

Crash Box 360

2005-11-24T15:23:00.000-05:00

When Microsoft announced it's first Xbox, the news was met with comments like "Oh great, now my video games can crash." Well, it seems those sarcastic comments have come to fruition with the 360. Microsoft, predictably, has managed to ruin the console-gaming experience with its signature bugs and crashes. My prediction: xbox virus by the end of next year. Imagine if you had to plug your NES into the wall to get a firmware upgrade? I've seen the future of gaming, and it looks annoying.

Be the first idiot on the block to own one:

2005-11-23T23:44:00.000-05:00

"Evoking a 12th century Central European tradition of hanging a tree from the ceiling at Christmas, this unique 7' pre-lit fir is inverted to ensure a smaller footprint for less-spacious areas, and allowing more room for the accumulation of presents underneath."

Finally, a tree that can accomodate my loot pile.

McFools

2005-11-23T12:05:00.000-05:00

This one is slightly old, but it seems to be coming back into the rotation, so I'm bringing it up. It's the ad for McDonald's new(ish) breakfast sandwhich, the McGriddle. The ad features a guy and a girl sitting in McDonald's, and it goes something like this (entirely from memory, so forgive the inaccuracies):

Guy: My girlfriend broke up with me.
(Girl brightens up, as if she finally has her chance to score with this guy, who is a toolbag)
Girl: Oh. Well, you know what they say... (reaches over and grabs his McGriddle(TM) from in front of him and starts eating it) ...a woman is like a McGriddle. They're soft and sweet and enjoyable, but the next thing you know, they're gone. (She finishes eating it and looks at him somewhat seductively) So what are you going to do now?
Guy (confused beyond all capacity for rational thought): I'm...going to go get another McGriddle?
(Girl looks disappointed. Cut to product plug. Back to them and she has a cup in her hand.)
Girl: OK, let's try again. A girl is like a cup of coffee...

And scene. OK, what the hell is any of this supposed to mean? Let's ignore the fact that a breakfast sandwhich that seems to be based on some sort of combination of synthetic pancakes and more synthetic syrup, served by a place as disgusting as McDonald's, could be the vilest thing ever consumed by anyone not named Divine. I can't even wrap my mind around the basic plot of the ad. Is the chick trying to hit on this guy? If so, why is she comparing herself to shitty fast food? And if she's trying to show him what a great girlfriend she could be, why is she doing it by stealing from him? Maybe she's not hitting on him so much as using his time of desperation and loneliness as a means to her opportunisitcally getting free food off him. And just how stupid is this guy? I get the feeling that he has some sort of Memento-esque short term memory loss, and this chick just feasts off of him every meal.

I know that it's almost redundant at this point to single out McDonald's as being tone deaf. But here are the messages I get from this ad:

1. Women are only after you for your shit. They act nice to you, but really all they're doing is stealing out right from underneath your nose. And when they're done with your food, then they go after your beverages.

2. Women are like bad fast food - low quality, cheaply made, easily dispensible, even more easily replaceable, and bad for you.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.

Sport Banality Vehicle

2005-11-21T17:04:00.000-05:00

You'd think Madison Avenue would have figured by now that the American public suffers from "mountain-top-vista" fatigue. I mean, how many times do we need to see a marginally tricked-out mini van, cresting some craggy peak?

Have you seen this SUV ad with the tagline "Tell better stories"? It's telling that I have absolutely no clue which SUV it's advertising. What the hell kind of better stories do you think these people are going to tell? "Gee, Fred, I spent so long pumping my mammoth gas tank full of gas that my dog suffocated inside the vehicle."

Or

"Wilma and I were out driving in our new SUV on I-95 and I drove right over a shredded tire--didn't swerve or anything--of course, now we've got severe undercarriage damage, but I never would have dreamt of doing that in my Camry."

Bigotry at T-Mobile

2005-11-20T21:29:00.000-05:00

These ads are appalling. T-mobile's "Poser Mobile" ads are blatantly, outrageously racist. The ads prominently feature characters with heavy ethnic accents--one with a thick east-Asian variety, another with a thick Pakistani / Indian accent. These stereotypes misuse slang and sport comically over-sized gangster wear. T-mobile is obviously acting on their perception that these cultures lack "street-cred." The ads are based on the sadly out-dated view that East Asians (and to a lesser degree, whites) are uncool.

Implying that a culture as uncool, or acting on such a stereotype, is deeply irresponsible, even for the advertising world. These ads scream "TONE DEAF."

T-mobile would likely point out that the "cool gang" has members of these ethnicities as well. Their presence in the cool gang, however, is pure tokenism, and they get no lines, and split seconds of screen time, as the "cool" African-American protagonist tells the posers to shove it.

Am I alone on this? Does anyone else think these ads are hateful?

(back to) The Future of Product Placement

2005-11-18T16:58:00.000-05:00

Product placement is a mixed blessing. Observe the "Back to the Future" Trilogy. These movies wouldn't be the same without it. From Steven Spielberg's cameo as a Marty-towing truck driver (wearing a Mountain Dew hat) in Part I, to the Tab joke in 1955, to the Pepsi Perfect in 2015, Pepsi is well represented in these movies (so is Calvin Klein, Nike, Pizza Hut, USA Today, Western Union, and Mattel...and it certainly was the best/only thing to ever happen to Delorean Motors).

Did all this product placement bother you when you first saw the movie? It certainly didn't bother me. I doubt I thought twice about it.

Go back and watch any 80's family classic, be it Ghostbusters, Innerspace, or E.T., you're bound to find some well-displayed logos mugging for the camera. Furthermore... wait, nix Innerspace. Even Martin Short wouldn't stick Innerspace between those two.

My point is, isn't this the best kind of advertising? It makes the movie more realistic--It always pissed me off when some sitcom character would have a box of "Donuts Donuts," or when Dad would catch his kid reading "Playpen" magazine--and it isn't jarring or disruptive to the movie experience.

Except when it is. I don't watch 24, but I heard recently that during a terrorist attack or whatever, the computer technician turns to the camera and says something like "Gee, this Cisco Brand (tm) security system sure is fantastic!" Not cool!

As my colleuage Mr. W. Stack, Esq astutely reminded me, Seinfeld was big on product placement. I saw that episode today when Seinfeld and Elaine keep offering people Snapple (It's the Virgin episode), and it's really funny. I don't care if Snapple paid for that exposure. It's well done. Snapple gets its name out there, Seinfeld seems more realistic, and there are some funny jokes. It wasn't just Snapple; Sienfield shilled for Häagen-Dazs, Bosco, Entenmann's, and Junior Mints, and it always worked.

Here's a preview

2005-11-18T12:38:00.000-05:00

This is to wet you're appetite for my upcoming post:

Isn't everyone this wealthy?

2005-11-17T10:14:00.000-05:00

A thanks to Dr. Meyers for letting me post here. I'll do what I can to maintain his high ideals and whatever.

On to business: there's this new-ish Dodge ad with that annoying husband and wife who have been in their ads for a while. There was the one where they were in the psychiatrist's office talking about two different cars, but really it's the same, but the doc doesn't get it because science is junk and religion is where it's at. And there's another where the dad wants to make sure the infant son knows about grilling and Hemi engines so he doesn't grow up gay. OK, I may be over-interpreting them a bit..but that's the gist. A solid string of annoying ads.

In the new one, they're driving in the desert and the wife wants the husband to use the GPS system because he's lost. She's pointing out all the other cool awesome features, like "Weren't you happy with the Hemi?" and "Don't you like the DVD player?" She throws in some line when she's like, "Weren't you happy we got a discount on the truck?" And he says, "It allowed us to get a bigger boat." Like everybody in fucking America can relate to this douchebag family who not only can spend $40K on a big truck that they only use to cart their whiny snot-nosed kids around, and can not only spend $75 at the pump to fill it up every 100 miles...but can also buy a boat on top of that. Do top ad execs know that most of America doesn't live in the same income bracket as they do? Is there any chance we can finish off this series of ads with this couple getting audited to hell by the IRS and spending 15-20 in the joint for tax evasion?

In a future installment, we'll discuss when we became so slavishly attached to screens with moving pictures that we collectively concluded it was a good idea to be able to watch TV while we drive.

Blast from the obnoxious past

2005-11-17T05:06:00.000-05:00

This is an oldy, but this ad's sheer out-of-touchedness (yes, out-of-touchedness) has been eating away at my, my, very soul for the past 3 years.

Does anyone remember this ad where Bill Ford (grandson of Henry) is talking straight into to the camera about how great Ford is and how much he loves the outdoors, and he states, totally seriously "I love the outdoors so much, I won't even stay at a hotel where the windows don't open." Okay... what the fuck? There are so many things wrong with that statement. First off, the most vivid image that comes to mind is this spoiled billionaire screaming at his assistant for not booking him at the right hotel. I have trouble conjuring any other image.... wait, I'm coming up with another one: spoiled billionaire screaming at hotel desk clerk for not having windows that open.

Does this screwball really think that opening hotel windows is a way to experience the outdoors? Or that insisting on there openability is a way to prove his love for the outdoors?

Okay, I'm all for hotel windows that open. But come on. Seriously. Couldn't someone have clued Bill in on the fact that he'd come off as seriously out-of-touch. The average Ford driver doesn't even stay in a hotel (nevermind a hotel with swishy requirements) he stays in a tent, waiting for deer, or liberals, to come within firing range.

Some good

2005-11-17T04:40:00.000-05:00

Although the point of this blog is to point out the negative (that's always more fun isn't it--why else would anyone become a critic?) I think it would be prudent to point out some positive developments in marketing etc. Right now, one force is making it quite clear to the myopic bean counters who run consumer electronics companies, that industrial design and an intuitive interface are just as important as any other product feature. Apple, with its iPod, has proven that people profoundly care about these things. Dell and Sony can throw all of the money and bells and whistles they want at their mp3 players, but until they grasp the fundamental fact that iPod's design is what's beating them, they're doomed to scrap around over the few contrarians and obsessive-compulsive ogg-vorbis devotees who refuse to buy Apple's superior product.

Even the companies that have tried to focus on design don't really get it. It's still dusted-down colors and cheap chrome: "cool" tempered with boardroom. One look and you can tell these companies were all putty-gray clunkers and 486 processors while Steve Jobs was envisioning the Green Apple iMac.

full disclosure: I have never owned an apple computer, yet I've owned many putty gray clunkers

Welcome.

2005-11-17T04:34:00.001-05:00

The point of this blog is to point out the inane blunders made by corporate marketers every day. I do this because their tone-deaf, ill-concieved advertising, branding, and design personally offend me. I don't hope to help them fix these problems. I do this because after watching a jarringly bad advertisment four times a day for a month it's cathartic to rant about it a little bit. I hope you enjoy.