Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
Advertising Age notes that the greatest impediment to selling absinthe may now be its strongest selling point:

Aspiring absinthe marketers spent the last few years trying to convince government regulators that the mystique surrounding the long-banned liquor -- cited as the cause of Vincent Van Gogh's madness and even linked to murders -- was mostly urban legend that ought to be disregarded.

Now that the wormwood-based liquor is being marketed legally again, look for those same marketers to raise that mystique at every opportunity.

The spirit was banned in 1912, but the newly approved imports "have levels of thujone -- the hallucination-inspiring chemical that derives from wormwood -- that are below the long-held government limit." I'm sure the importers don't want you to know that.

Labels: advertising, alcohol

- posted by David Johnsen @ 11:12 PM 0 comments

 
Politics Where You Least Expect It
I was reading a blog entry at The New Republic's site when I came across this comment from "epackard-02":

Has anyone else seen the Charmin commercial where the red bear wants the *strong* Charmin and the blue bear wants the *soft* Charmin.

Subversive, I tell you.

That's the funniest political observation I've heard in months. So was Mr. Whipple a Republican?

UPDATE - I wrote the above before learning that Dick Wilson, who portrayed Mr. Whipple for decades, died on Monday at age 91. Here's some interesting stuff from the AdAge obituary:

Mr. Wilson also received an unusual stipend from [Procter & Gamble] -- complimentary rolls of Charmin shipped each month. He made the "Guiness Book of World Records" for the longest-running TV character with 504 ads, and a 1979 poll (conducted for P&G) pegged him as the third best-known American behind Richard Nixon and Billy Graham.

And I know he was better-liked than at least one of those guys (that poll doesn't say much for President Carter, does it?). Wilson also did a lot of television and movie work (read the list and try to think of a TV series he wasn't on in the 1960s and 1970s).

Labels: advertising, US politics

- posted by David Johnsen @ 3:51 AM 0 comments

 
Goodbye LaSalle Bank
While I'm not happy that 2,500 Illinoisans are going to lose their jobs when LaSalle Bank merges into Bank of America, I won't shed a tear for the demise of LaSalle's godawful marketing campaign. Let's hope ABN AMRO retains the rights to the word checkilicious, dresses it in concrete shoes, and drops it into a Dutch canal, never to be seen again. Ditto for checking couture.

Labels: advertising, marketing

- posted by David Johnsen @ 1:35 AM 0 comments

 
Strange Bedfellows
New advertising slogan:

Pig out... Slim down... Nestle

Reaching new heights in hedging bets, Swiss food and drink giant Nestle announced today that it will acquire Jenny Craig, Inc. later this year. Whichever way the diet pendulum swings, Nestle has it covered. Should a personal crisis bring on a round of binge eating, Nestle will happily sell you chocolates. But if you've already had more than your share, Nestle will help you lose the weight. And once you slim down, maybe you'd like some chocolates...

(Note: Nestle isn't the first to do this -- Unilever owns both Ben & Jerry's and Slim Fast.)

Labels: advertising

- posted by David Johnsen @ 8:57 PM 0 comments

 
Bastard of the Day
With the Illinois primary elections just days away, today's Bastard of the Day award goes to the purveyors of political phone ads. With an unlisted phone number and my aggressive "don't call me ever again" policy (my wife weasels out with "she's not home right now"), we get very few calls from telemarketers. But in the past two weeks we have been inundated with prerecorded messages in support of either Forrest Claypool or John Stroger for Cook County Board President. Most have been from Citizens for Claypool, but I'm pretty sure one was from Stroger backers (I could be wrong since I don't listen closely before hanging up).

I've been leaning toward Claypool simply because Stroger has been in charge for too darn long. I'd like to see someone else's name on every freaking forest preserve sign in Cook County. Now, however, I am having second thoughts because I tend to support the candidate who irritates me the least. If you want my vote, don't call me. Let your opponent fall into that trap.

(Note: This entry doesn't consider the ramifications of Stroger's recent stroke. A vote for Stroger may really be a vote for the person that the party selects to replace him.)

Labels: advertising, bastards, election06, Illinois politics

- posted by David Johnsen @ 11:34 PM 0 comments

 
Speedy Delivery!
Whenever I see a bicyclist in an advertisement, it catches my eye. Especially in one of my wife's horse magazines. This ad features a special breed of cyclist, the aerodynamic time trialist. What are they advertising? A container to ship horse semen!

It's a cool photo, but I'm not sure it works here. The ad says "The Leader of the Pack," but time trialists ride alone (except as part of a team in which case it doesn't really matter who is in front among teammates). There is no "pack." A photo of a cyclist leading or breaking away from the peloton would fit the words better. And how would this person carry an Equitainer? It would be funny if they doctored the photo to show an Equitainer strapped to the rider's back. Maybe they should have used a touring bike with a rear rack instead.

Lance Armstrong was one of the best time trialists in the world before he retired. Since there are lots of horses in Texas, semen delivery could be his second career!

UPDATE 03/18/2006 - Somehow I forgot to mention the name of the manufacturer: Hamilton Research, Inc. Coincidentally, Tyler Hamilton is another formidable American time trialist.

Labels: advertising, bicycling

- posted by David Johnsen @ 12:18 AM 0 comments

 
Bastard of the Day
Today's award goes to John Cougar Mellencamp. If I see that old fart with his band on a basketball court singing "Rockin' in the N-C-Double-A" one more time, I'll scream. Of course, this Hoosier has been on the downward slide for a long, long time. Even his best albums like Scarecrow contained their share of filler and pop garbage. Heck, "R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A." sounds inspired compared to trash like "Lonely Ol' Night." At least it was better than American Fool. I hate "Jack & Diane" with every fiber of my being -- except the fibers I reserve for hating "Hurts So Good."

One of the first times I can recall my future wife making fun of me was when we heard Mellencamp on the radio (circa 1997), and I said, "It's John Mellencamp, trying to stay relevant." She thought I was goofy to use a word like "relevant" to describe a performer (as if a woman who has memorized Slayer lyrics has any right to judge my rock criticism). But I was right, and even then he was losing the fight. Aside from dusting off the ol' guitar to play "Rain On The Scarecrow" at Farm Aid, this guy should have hung it up a decade ago.

But I have a special reason for directing my vitriol at Mellencamp now. He and his freaking NCAA basketball March Madness are on CBS, and some of my favorite shows aren't on this week because of it (I lucked out with the Olympics since I don't watch NBC). That makes CBS and the NCAA honorary bastards. I have always hated basketball, probably because it requires two things I don't have: height and coordination. I didn't watch the Fighting Illini in the Final Four last year. Even when Michael Jordan, arguably the best player ever (if you would argue, you're not from Chicago), was working his magic for the Bulls, I hardly paid attention to anything more than the last five minutes of a few playoff games. It's okay if they want to show this stuff on Saturdays and Sundays -- I don't watch TV on weekends anyway -- but don't waste prime time on some lousy first round college playoff game like Goober Tech versus Bumwipe State.

And to think, I have to put up with another two weeks of this.

Labels: advertising, bastards, music

- posted by David Johnsen @ 12:44 PM 0 comments

 
One Small Calorie
I thought everyone remembered the Diet Pepsi jingle from the 1980s:

Now you see it, now you don't
Here you have it, here you won't
Oh Diet Pepsi one small calorie
Now you see it now you don't

I always wondered how that bottle had one calorie, no more and no less. I pictured a guy dropping a single calorie into each bottle just for the sake of marketing. Whatever the case, I thought it was a pretty memorable ad campaign that distinguished the product from others. In the past week, however, I have heard two other diet colas mistakenly described as having "one calorie."

First, I overheard a woman saying that she likes Diet Coke because it only has one calorie. As far as I know, it has always had zero, or as their web site says, "less than one calorie," attributed to traces in "aspartame, caramel color and citric acid" (the label says zero because of FDA rounding). For more than you ever really wanted to know about this topic, check out the Diet Coke Product FAQ. I quizzed my wife last night about which drink had "just one calorie," and she said Diet Coke, too.

Then yesterday a co-worker was complimenting my choice of beverage, Diet Rite: "That's good stuff. My mom drinks it. And it's got just one calorie, you know." Well, actually, Diet Rite doesn't have any calories. Technically, the presence of caramel color and citric acid means it probably has a tiny amount, so I'd put it in the "less than one" range like Diet Coke.

I always thought Diet Pepsi had an effective and memorable ad campaign. Now I wonder, have people confused the ads for these diet drinks over time? Or did the old Diet Pepsi ads make people think that all diet drinks have one calorie? The kicker is that nowadays, even Diet Pepsi doesn't have one calorie--it has zero, too!

Labels: advertising

- posted by David Johnsen @ 11:08 AM 1 comments

 
Desecrating Baseball's Hallowed Bricks
I suppose it was inevitable that the Cubs would try to place advertising on the bricks behind home plate at Wrigley Field. After all, at least one television station already superimposes their own computer-generated ads on the wall during broadcasts. Still, the overt commercialization of sports has been a major factor in driving me away from them.

The team complains that player salaries keep going up, so they need more revenue. This is a problem that Major League Baseball must resolve. Let's face it, nobody deserves a million dollars a year for any kind of work, especially in sports. I will allow that if someone is willing to pay it, then they should get it (this is capitalism, after all), but I can't see why the owners are willing. Salary caps make a lot of sense. Tell the players they can't make more than, oh, $1.5 million a year (rather generous, I think). If they don't like that, they can always go work at McDonalds or Wal-Mart like people who can't hit or pitch do. I'm amazed that the average American sports fan tolerates this whacked-out salary scale, especially when the teams want to wallpaper the ballpark with advertising to support it (read Jim Hightower or Naomi Klein, and you'll discover just how much advertising has infiltrated our every activity).

Wrigley Field's traditional look is a huge draw in these days of bland, antiseptic stadiums. I don't think it is wise for the Tribune Company (owners of the Cubs) to desecrate the ballpark by selling off its nostalgic value to the highest bidder. Allowing ads behind home plate is the beginning of a slide down a slippery slope that will someday see the ivy ripped from the centerfield wall, replaced by assorted corporate logos.

Labels: advertising, baseball

- posted by David Johnsen @ 4:09 PM 0 comments