Filed under: Attitude & Aptitude, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Taboo Categories
A long time ago I wrote about a gum that was designed to stop teenagers whacking off.
Then there was the soap that supposedly made you a virgin again. Or something.
However before you think the ‘anti-sex’ brigade have the monopoly on stupid and ineffective products … don’t forget Vulva aftershave, the scent designed to make men smell like a vagina. A sweaty vagina. Oh how I wish I was joking.
Anyway, I say all this because recently a friend sent me this …
I am hoping he sent it to me because he knew I’d find it amusing, but seriously look at it!
I must admit, when I first saw it, I thought it was a joke but then I visited the URL and it went to a real place.
Now I have to be honest, having read it – I literally don’t know if it’s true or a parody.
If it’s true, it’s hilarious. [And a teensy bit scary]
And if it’s a parody, it’s absolutely brilliant. [Check out the ‘Family Fun’ link]
But here’s the thing, that ‘ad’ states that you can never climb the ladder to heaven if your hands are full of penis.
Despite my best friend being the proud owner of a penis that could easily be mistaken for an international ballistic missile, I’ve never had any penis size issues but I might now if this organisation say’s that the average penis requires 2 hands to control.
Or maybe that’s just people who are going to go to hell.
Which – if it is – is the best ad for sin I’ve ever seen.
Besides, there’ll be more interesting people there … not to mention all my friends.
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PS: I promise the blog posts get better this week. Eventually.
Filed under: Brand Suicide, Communication Strategy, Corporate Evil, Crap Campaigns In History, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Crap Products In History, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Taboo Categories
Yeah … a fag company advertising their death sticks with the line, “Life. Full On”
OK, so this photo was taken in a market where cigarette advertising is still allowed – which means they’re already behind the times – but unless their interpretation of ‘Life. Full On’ is one Salem fag puts 10 years of hard-livng pressure on your heart and lungs … then they’re a bunch of lying bastards.
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For the record, I took this photo in 2006, so there is a very good chance this campaign – and cigarette legislation – has changed. But since when has that ever stopped me.
Filed under: Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Comment, Design, Health, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Positioning, Taboo Categories
So I was in a supermarket recently when I saw this.
While I am a huge advocate of cleanliness and healthiness and I absolutely appreciate the cleaning properties of vinegar – I’m not sure if this is something I’d find appealing when looking for a product that I’m going to use on my most sensitive regions.
OK, two things.
1. I appreciate I WOULDN’T be using it on my sensitive regions.
[Sorry for that image]
2. Like Listerine [until they came out with the orange flavour, which is still madness personified] I get that some products need to leave you with an ‘ugly tingling feeling’ so you emotionally feel you have been cleaned. So to speak.
But seriously, is vinegar the sort of thing you’d want to use on yourself?
Maybe it’s because I’m a bloke – and an English bloke – but the word vinegar conjures up images of chips and while I would love to eat a bag of them covered in Sarsons [not that overpriced, poncy stuff] I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want my nether-regions to smell of them.
I wonder if that means this product isn’t available in the UK given vinegar’s strong association with dodgy food.
Actually I wonder if any normal person would spend this much time thinking about this subject?
Alright … maybe I’m a sad, weird freak but this product stopped me in my tracks, but that could also be because the naming is some of the weirdest I’ve ever seen in my life.
It starts off all nice and angelic with ‘Summers Eve’.
Oh that’s a nice name … it paints pictures of a beautiful evening sky, full of beautiful colours promising a bright tomorrow.
Then they throw in ‘Douche’.
OK, that kind of ruins the picture a bit because at best you think of someone you know who is a total idiot and at worst, you think of something a woman uses to clean her privates.
Then they double down with ‘Extra Cleaning Vinegar & Water’.
And with that, the beautiful evening sky has been replaced with the feeling of needles being jabbed where you never ever want them jabbed.
Seriously, that naming combination has to be the weirdest ever.
Surely they could have thought of other ways to talk about douche’s and vinegar given they’d come up with such an evocative product name.
But no. They didn’t which is why instead of Summers Eve, they should have called it Winter’s Worst and be done with it.