Flat Burgers, Empty Tacos, and Stoned Aliens

If I could eat an advertisement, my life would be so much happier. Every time I see an ad for food, fast food specifically, I think, "Wow. That looks fantastic." And every time I look at my meal, my heart sinks.

I'm not sure who to be disappointed in, the restaurant for their false advertising, or myself for continuing to get my hopes up. We all know that what you see on an ad is not always, or sometimes, or ever what you get. I learned this sad fact of life first hand the last time I ate at Burger King and was left with a full stomach and an empty heart. I've chronicled these tough times in my post, Reality is a Cruel Mistress, and you can read about that after I finish explaining the real problem.

Sex sells. Even when it comes to food, the appeal is where the money is found. Advertisers know this. We know this. And even though we understand that the product in the picture is a lie, we still imagine eating the ideal burger, taco, frozen pizza, or whatever floats your individual boat. 

For the sake of the post, lets refer to this image as "Exhibit A." 

Exhibit A is a rather morose, but accurate depiction of all of the fast food I've eaten in the past week. Please reserve your judgement. 

Burgers are flat, and dry. Tacos are empty. Have you ever had an empty Taco? Taking it out of the wrapper is like (SPOILER ALERT) watching Bambi's mother get shot all over again. 

I'm not a huge fan of Disney movies, though I am a big fan of deer meat, however, nobody can be sure which type of meat does not fill the empty shells of Taco Bell. 

Now let us be realistic for a minute. These advertisers are doing their job and we continue to buy in. Score one for you, advertising agencies. 

If you're anything like me, this image saddens you, and I'm sorry to have to kill the mood. As consumers we must learn to separate image from reality until the day that the product on the package matches the product on the inside, which is a less that likely expectation. Until the day that happens, we will have to continue to deal with flat burgers, empty tacos, and Tweety Bird looking like a stoned alien.

Calm Down People

"This ad is racist. That ad is sexist."

Every time a consumer makes a comment like this, the job of advertisers becomes exponentially more difficult. Or does it?

We've all heard that any publicity is good publicity, and while that is the truth, there is a fine line between creating a buzz and making an ad demeaning enough to slow sales. 

Recently, General Mills decided that its about time they show some cultural changes in their ads, just like they did in their recent Cheerios Superbowl advertisement simply entitled "Gracie." 

An adorable ad featuring the daughter of an interracial couple who has just learned that she is about to have a baby brother which is explained by the addition of Cheerios. The little girl then uses her newly found leverage to barter for a puppy; a request to which her father happily obliges. Then we see mom's face and we all know that dad is in the doghouse for not clearing the idea of having a puppy with her first. 

Such a simple ad with a very loving message, and it only ended in serious backlash against General Mills, which is described in this NJ.com article.

Times are changing. Demographics are changing. If you fail to change with them or at least learn to accept them, you'll likely spend your time as angry as a mom who just found out she's getting a puppy. 

Its an advertisement people. If you can't bare to watch it, the solution is simple: don't watch it. 

Info - Wait For It - Mercials

Infomercials. The bane of every insomniacs existence. They promote the most useless products and do it by perhaps the least entertaining means possible.

There are a handful of reasons for infomercials running between the hours of 2 am and 5 am:

• They probably can't afford to run them in prime time. There are no conversion rates to fund those time slots.
• Nobody is watching. Which is a good thing, because nobody wants to see them.
• Anybody in the proper state of mind to buy the products advertised has probably had a very long day and an even longer night. 
• Something has to take up the space on TV that actual shows and ads don't want.
• And did I mention that NOBODY wants to see them?!

Here are a few of the most ridiculous infomercials ever conceived by the human mind, and I would love for you to see them in a humorous light. Please, for the love of all that is good, don't take these seriously. Get a good laugh, and just see exactly what I mean.

Now if any of these appealed to you, there are stores specifically dedicated to purchasing this junk. Just visit your local "As Seen on TV" store and see for yourself. 

Not all products in infomercials are complete junk. I just enjoyed a salad out of my bacon-bowl (It's a real thing. Look it up) while laughing at the apparent irony of eating a healthy snack in a bowl made of bacon. Welcome to America. 

Now please, go, watch, enjoy but don't buy these hilariously terrible products. 

Reality is a Cruel Mistress

Have you ever looked at an advertisement and thought, "Wow. That looks too good to be true" ? I know that personally, I do that with just about every advertisement for food that I see.

The unfortunate truth is that as long as a restaurant or any food distributor uses actual food in their advertisement, they are allowed to use the best of the best and bring in artists to manipulate the food to make sure it looks as perfect as humanly possible.

Today's case study involves the advertisements for one of Burger King's newest promotions:

As a college student with limited funds and an athlete who is constantly hungry, again I thought, "That looks too good to be true. You're telling me I can eat 20 nuggets for 3$? Sign me up."

So, naturally, I rolled over to Burger King in my beat up Toyota Camry for my 3$ feast, and what I found was less than impressive.

The nuggets were flat, heavily breaded, actively growing colder, and just plain awful. I'm not even sure if it was meat I was eating. Also, what part of the chicken is the nugget? It was depressing. I was sad eating food, and that never happens.

Well done BK. You bamboozled yet another consumer. Although, in hindsight, I have only myself to blame. A promotion like that actually is too good to be true. You have my money, and I have my regrets. Well played BK. Well played.

Advertising Done Right

I spend a lot of time talking about all of the things advertisers are doing wrong, but we rarely talk about the many ads which are done right. Sometimes their ads are just on point. Plain and simple - they work.

A few weeks back we talked about all of the advertising campaigns used by Geico. Both the good and the bad, and now, I would like to go back to Geico's newest ad. Its almost like somebody at the company had a concept and it just clicked. Before I keep babbling about it, lets watch.

All of us have watched a horror movie and thought to ourselves: "Why in the hell would you do that?" The answer is simple, in horror movies, its just what you do. And without this logic, we would have no horror genre. Nobody acts logically in horror movies. It would kill the plot. 

Geico took that thought process and turned it into an excellent commercial.

A horror movie backdrop, and an apparent horror movie cliché (as opposed to textbook advertising clichés) and explains it with one simple statement - "It's just what you do." And even the villain is dumbfounded by their absurd actions. 

THEN Geico took that simple phrase and told you that if you wanted to save 15% on their car insurance, you use Geico because "It's just what you do." Despite reusing the same tagline about saving 15% they effectively made a commercial that is nothing short of excellent. I've now seen it upwards of a dozen times and it's just as great as the first time I watched it.

Well played Geico. Well played. 

Watch this ad. Enjoy it. And get ready for more horror movies and commercials as Halloween approaches. So until next time...

Sneaky Sneaky Advertisers

It's no secret. Advertisers will do just about anything to grab our attention. But let me let you in on a secret you may or may not already hold, we see what they're doing!

We aren't sheep. We understand attention grabbing tactics when we see them, however, we still continue to fall for them. 

• They'll change the size of the font midway through the sentence to make words more IMPACTFUL...
• They like to say "Hey! Look Over here!" despite the fact that we were obviously already looking...
• They like to study which color combinations resonate best with consumers...
• They really really like to put things in lists because apparently we all love bullet points...
• And FINALLY, they really like to do things like summarize the first part of their list with some funny anecdote about the other points to make it seem like they too have a consumer driven sense of humor. Click here to see a website which manifests itself as a loose extension of the topic so that you think we actually have outside support to the info we're giving you. 

In no way can I begin to cover all of the tactics used by advertisers to grab our attention, but hopefully I can sum up a couple so that we're better protected against the seemingly sneaky approaches taken by today's advertisers. 

Until we show them that we won't fall for tricks, and we want meaningful, truthful content, they will continue to try to take the easy way out. One day maybe advertising will be boiled down to telling the truth, but until that happens...