8 posts tagged “advertising”

I've noticed that our society gets hung up on trendy buzzwords, which are used to death for a period of time, then slowly disappear only to be replaced by the latest buzz word du jour.

When a word or a phrase is hot, one will encounter it everywhere: in want ads, names of businesses, product names, hear it on TV, and so on.

One of the more recent trendy buzz word seems to be "solutions". As if everything in life is to be viewed as a problem that one must find a "solution" for.

I've seen an employment agency listed in the want ads called "Staffing Solutions". I've also encountered, "Hair Solutions", "Breakfast Solutions", "Landscape Solutions", and the like.

Entering "solutions" at the Yahoo search engine brought up, among many others:

Ecommerce Solutions

Network Solutions

Privacy Solutions

Solutions for Your Home

Google Business Solutions

Climate Solutions

And so on, ad nauseum.

I remember back in the early 80s, one of the buzz words then was "interface". I'd see this word constantly in want ads, as in "Must interface well with others". Mercifully, this trend did not last long, and we no longer see "interface" used as a synonym for "get along with".

I imagine that "solutions" will have an equally short lifespan of trendiness, when it will be inevitably replaced by the latest inane banality.

I've not picked on the advertising industry in awhile, so here goes. 

I've been hearing different ads lately that talk about "that guy".   "That guy" is usually a bumbling, figure of universal scorn; someone who isn't quite all man, somehow.  Naturally, use of the product being advertised will save the men from the shame of being "that guy".

For instance, there's a radio spot for STP oil treatment with Richard Petty telling us not to be "that guy".  In this instance, "that guy" doesn't know a thing about cars, barely knows how to raise the hood of the car, calls parts of the engine "doohickeys" and "thingamajigs", and so on.  You get the picture.

The next buzz word I'm hearing, though not limited exclusively to the realm of actual commercials is "rebrand".   From what I can gather from context, "rebrand" means to change one's image, usually used in the context of changing a corporate image.

The mental images I take away from this, however, are skittish already-branded cows running awy from psychotic cowboys holding red-hot branding irons who want to brand them again.

Another trend I've noticed is a fascination with Tuscany region of Italy.  Restaurants all over have popped up with Tuscan style dishes of various kinds, I see travel agency ads promoting trips there, I see ads promoting Tuscan style home decorating, and so on.

What's the sudden appeal of Tuscany, I wonder?   Twenty years ago, I never saw references to this part of Italy.   I imagine it's a temporary thing until the next foreign flavor of the month takes its place, as Tuscany has apparently supplanted the chipotle mania of a few years ago.

/rant over

Gives a whole new meaning to the expression "Another mouth to feed", huh?

What’s up with all the disgusting, puke-inducing internet ads I’m seeing everywhere on the net lately.

You know the ones: magnified, close-up pictures of yellow teeth, toe fungus, severe acne, distorted photoshopped photos of belly fat, animated asses that swell and reduce over and over, and the like.

Such ads are always placed front and center, where you can’t avoid them by averting your eyes.   I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to have a magnified picture of toe rot staring me in the face when I’m trying to read a website.

Most of these ads have the clickable words “learn more” below the nasty image being foisted upon us. Learn more?   I’m already nauseated having seen the first picture.  Do these idiots think I’m going to click to go se more pictures, so I can make sure to lose my lunch?

I understand that those selling products to cure these various problems have a right to advertise.  But do they have to show us graphic, billboard-size images of the “before” pictures?  People who have these problems and who could benefit from the products know what it looks like and don’t need to see it plastered all over the internet any more than the rest of us do.

Pardon me while I go blow some chunks.

Nearly every day, I hear a commercial on the radio promoting a nasal spray for seasonal allergy symptoms.  According to the product's website, the spray is supposed to help:

• sneezing
• congestion
• itchy nose
• runny nose
• red eyes
• itchy eyes
• watery eyes

The site also lists the possible side effects, which are:

• nosebleed
• nasal sores
• nasal fungal infection.

Eye problems also may occur including

• glaucoma
  
• cataracts

No, thanks.  After reading about all the possible side effects of this medication, I think I'd rather just take my chances with sneezing, congestion, and so on.   They are, after all, minor problems, much less serious that the side effects the medication might generate.  Your mileage may vary, but that's my take on it.

I find myself uninspired for a full length entry today, but I've got a few snippets from my "odds and ends" file to cobble an entry together with.

Many times, I get ideas for writing while going about my business, frequently when driving or showering. It's best if I jot down the key word or idea as quickly as possible, because if my attention moves on to something else, it's quite likely I'll forget it. Sometimes, the idea will come back to me of its own accord, especially if I'm relaxed and don't try to force it, but fairly often, once I forget it, it's gone.

Some might say this is a sign of getting old, which I've heard referred to either as CRS (Can't Remember Shit) or its more serious cousin, CRAFT (Can't Remember a Fucking Thing).

I don't know if it's necessarily a degradation of memory. It seems to me that the longer one lives, the more facts and experiences the brain is hosting as compared to the relatively emptier mind of a younger person, who has far fewer life experiences to keep track of.
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My brother stutters. He always has, since my earliest years. It's lessened some as he's gotten older, but he still does it from time to time. I don't know anyone else in the family who does.

While listening to the radio the other day, a public service announcement came on about stuttering, telling people it was a neurological thing having nothing to do with intelligence or being overly nervous.

I'd always known it wasn't related to intelligence because of my brother, who is a skilled surgical nurse, but the common belief in our family was that his stuttering had a psychological component related to the issues he had with our father.
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Why is it that when you encounter double glass doors to enter a business, one of them is always locked? What's up with this? Why even have the door if it's always going to be locked?
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Some advertising phrases and what they really mean:

Get up to fifty percent off!

You'll get ten percent off. If you were going to get fifty percent off, the modifier "up to" would not be in the sentence.

Pay as low as 99 dollars a month!

Again, if you had a reasonable chance of getting this price, "as low as" would not be part of the sentence.

Pay 99 dollars a month, with approved credit.

....with only .00001% of customers having sufficiently approved credit.

Results not typical

This is a typical disclaimer in weight loss ads, shown at the bottom of the_ page in microscopic letters. So, this means that, even though Ms A lost 100 pounds in six months, your likely weight loss will be about three ounces. And that will be from your wallet.

I work with a lot of people in their early 20s.  And it seems nearly all of them smoke, almost without exception.  It seems as if a larger percentage of them smoke than did those of my generation when I was in my 20s.

I don't get it.  Growing up with information about the dangers of smoking, from lung cancer to emphysema, bombarding them at every turn, I don't see how anyone with half a brain takes up smoking nowadays.  I pass them huddling outside on their smoke breaks, sometimes making a smart remark, "Getting a head start on that case of lung cancer, hmm?"  and they laugh and keep on puffing.

The truth about the dangers of smoking have been around since the early sixties, at least, yet people continue to doggedly take up smoking.  It's almost as if they have a death wish.  Surely everyone has had a relative, friend, or who has known someone personally who died from the effects of smoking.   Yet, they smoke on.

My mother smoked.  Smoking was a direct cause of her early death in her forties from a massive stroke.  I remember my father doing everything he could to get her to stop, but she kept on until it killed her.   However, her death served as a negative example for her children, none of whom smoke today, myself included.

But at least my mother's generation has an excuse for when they took up smoking.  My mother began smoking as a teen during World War II when the negative effects of smoking were not yet clearly known.  Indeed, smoking was promoted at that time as an aid to weight loss, and several advertisements of the time featured doctors endorsing their favorite brand of cigarettes.

But people today who start smoking -- there is no excuse.   It's just plain stupidity.

Following below are a couple of ads that convinced my mother's generation that smoking was harmless

It has been said that advertising reflects reality. But, in many ways, it also serves to shape it, to manipulate expectations.

For instance, most ads for food products that kids like are directed toward mothers. A few years ago, a cereal ad had the slogan, "Kid tested, mother approved". More recently, I heard an ad, "Kid delicious, mom nutritious".

These ads reflect the reality that, in most families, mothers are mainly or solely responsible for supervising the eating habits of children. But more to the point, these ads subtly bombard people with ideas of how things should be.

After seeing such ads, one would think that fathers don't care what their children eat; it would be OK with them if their kids licked the dust from the floor and drank water out of the toilet.

The "Inept Dad" theme has also been done in advertising, which only serves to bolster the "Mom as responsible" idea. As an example, there was this one cold medication ad that showed Mom coming down stairs after several days in bed with a cold. She found Dad and the kids looking guilty in a room that looked like a tornado just swept through. In other words, home life goes to hell in a handbasket when Mom isn't there to supervise.

As one who raised a child alone and as one who was raised for part of his childhood by a single father, these ads kind of irritate me. How hard would it have been to make the ad slogans say, "Kid tested, parent approved" or "Kid delicious, parent nutritious"? Or shown a few bumbling MOMS?

But I have to admit, there's a Hardee's ad that fits me to a T. It shows a guy who's obviously a bachelor, with unkempt hair, unshaved, wearing only a shirt, underwear and socks, clumsily mopping up coffee from a coffee maker that boiled over. There's coffee all over the counter, running onto the floor, and he's dragging his sleeve through it as he tries to clean it up, half asleep.

Yeah, that would be me, all right.