# Bad marketing concepts **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 29, 2004, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-marketing-concepts/237198 "2004-03-29T23:57:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2004, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-marketing-concepts/237198/81 "2004-04-06T20:49:39Z")
> [@Jeff Lichtman](#): > > This one isn’t as dumb as you think. They’re saying Denny’s isn’t a fast food restaurant - that it’s a good place to sit as well as to eat. Most fast food restaurants have tiny tables and uncomfortable chairs to encourage customers to leave. Denny’s message is that you can stay there a while. A while back, Dennys was also using something along the lines of “Good Eats. Comfy Seats.” ---
**Author:** ![whiterabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/cab0a1/32.png) [@whiterabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whiterabbit)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2004, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-marketing-concepts/237198/82 "2004-04-06T22:09:06Z")
> [@LilyoftheValley](#): > > I don’t care, either, but is it possible it was targeted at teenage girls? In middle school and high school, I can imagine some girls being embarrassed. Quite possibly, though in my experience more girls were embarassed NOT to have their periods, with the exception being if a BOY found out you were having yours. If a BOY finds out, your life is over, you must change schools and pray he doesn’t tell anybody ever and you really should just kill yourself or something. :rolleyes: Besides, while I don’t go around in public discussing my periods, I refuse to let marketing people convince me that it’s a horrible awful thing that must be hid and deodorized and otherwise concealed OR ELSE. I’d love to not have them, but it’s going to keep happening for quite a while and I refuse to be that squeamish about something that’s a simple biological fact of life. ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2004, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-marketing-concepts/237198/83 "2004-04-06T22:53:06Z")
> [@erislover](#): > > I saw this on a trip to Indianapolis. Hilarious. And all this time I never knew it was a problem! It is here in Raleigh. When I had my hot water replaced, I ended up dealing with a plumber who had apparently not bathed in a week. I filed a complaint with the company, but it didn’t do any good. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2004, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-marketing-concepts/237198/84 "2004-04-06T23:30:37Z")
Pretty much any commercial that features models pretending to play musical instruments. I’m thinking specifically of a series of commercials for some new line of hair-care products back in the 1990s. Come on, people. Any real musicians watching your ads are going to be so distracted by the lame attempt at showing “musicians” that they’re not even going to remember the name of your product. Could it really have been that much trouble to simply coach the models on at least the proper way to hold the instruments? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2004, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-marketing-concepts/237198/85 "2004-04-06T23:31:04Z")
> [@DrMemory](#): > > A recent advert for “Tampex” leaves me mystified. Not understanding tampon adverts is nothing to worry about - it proves that you’re human. How about this for a lousy concept? Lipton have an ad for their bottled iced tea that begins, “Once you’ve discovered the refreshing taste of Lipton’s Iced Tea, who knows what else you’ll discover?” It then proceeds to rattle off a list that makes the formerly cool-ish guy who’s just made this “discovery” look like the biggest lamer in the entire world. The message, apparently, is that if you like their product then you are a sad, pathetic twat with no taste whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2004, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-marketing-concepts/237198/86 "2004-04-06T23:37:35Z")
I just saw that Lipton’s advert tonight for the first time; are they trying to say that their product is badly dated, or just that you have to be a twat to drink it? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-marketing-concepts/237198/87 "2004-04-07T00:00:48Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I just saw that Lipton’s advert tonight for the first time; are they trying to say that their product is badly dated, or just that you have to be a twat to drink it? Since I doubt - or at least, pray - that sex with geriatrics was never the in thing, I’m going to have to go with the latter. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-marketing-concepts/237198/88 "2004-04-07T04:14:43Z")
> [@Ponder Stibbons](#): > > If a UPS truck burns rubber peeling out of the parking lot, would you call that “leaving a Brown streak”? I’d say the Brown left skid marks. ---
**Author:** ![gregongie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/919ad9/32.png) [@gregongie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gregongie)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-marketing-concepts/237198/89 "2004-04-07T06:27:21Z")
I have great respect for whoever “had the balls” to name a hair-removal product **Nad’s cream**. ---
**Author:** ![Wisp00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/977dab/32.png) [@Wisp00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wisp00)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-marketing-concepts/237198/90 "2004-04-07T07:04:52Z")
> [@gregongie](#): > > I have great respect for whoever “had the balls” to name a hair-removal product **Nad’s cream**. Of course, the best part about this is the hair-removal cream was named after the creator’s daughter… presumably also named NAD ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2004, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-marketing-concepts/237198/91 "2004-04-12T23:54:54Z")
Okay, I just saw a commercial that immediately made me think of this thread. An ad for some conditioning shampoo (Clairol, maybe?) which ended with the spokesmodel cheerily saying, “With (whatever the product name was,) my hair is always ready for its close-up.” Do you really want to invoke a phrase that’s synonymous with a delusional sense of enduring beauty? One that conjures the image of a woman whose desperation to maintain her glamourous appearance transforms her into a freak that is by turns pathetic and frightening? Someone who ordinarily hides her greying, thinning hair under a bizarre turban, and who, after going to great lengths to be “[ready for her close-up](http://www.lagruyere.ch/culture/articles/images/sunsetboulevard.jpg),” sports a kind of fright-wig do that is guaranteed to give small children nightmares? Aren’t advertisers supposed to have _some_ degree of cultural literacy? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2004, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-marketing-concepts/237198/92 "2004-04-13T00:09:25Z")
Just saw the Hewlett Packard digital photo ad, and laughed out loud at the music. [A song about some guy obsessing over photos of his dead girlfriend](http://www.izmarit.net/lyric_view.asp?lid=701) is probably not what I’d want associated with my “take your own photos and develop them at home” message. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2004, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-marketing-concepts/237198/93 "2004-04-13T00:36:56Z")
> [@Wisp00](#): > > Of course, the best part about this is the hair-removal cream was named after the creator’s daughter… presumably also named NAD [Nadine, apparently](http://www.stomptokyo.com/extras/nads/). What’s odd is that she didn’t name the cream after the daughter that actually had the excess hair problem. ---
**Author:** ![bughunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@bughunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bughunter)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2004, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-marketing-concepts/237198/94 "2004-04-13T22:46:31Z")
There were several that I remember… all along the lines of “Why did no one at the ad company _or sponsor_ notice that??” - Isuzu. Slogan: Go Farther. Except at the end of their ads, the slogan was spelled out one letter at a time, the letters zooming in from the foreground. Sounds great, right? Sure, except that my brain parsed the phrase as soon as it completed a parseable statement: **Go Fart** - Levi’s. Many considered their singing navel commercial unfortunate. But since it was controversial, it was probably their biggest success. (And I have a navel fetish, so I loved it.) - Diet Dr. Pepper. “Tastes More Like Regular Dr. Pepper” Oooo-kay. More than _what_? Dr. Joe’s? Most illiterate slogan ever. and finally, my favorite bad marketing category – potty mouths, which I have seen in two varieties: - The talking anthropomorphised toilet, with the lid and seat moving when the thing talks. For cleaning products, usually. Bad breath, anyone? - A brand of toilet training seats for toddlers, essentially an ass gasket that you attach to your “grown up” seats. It’s a padded toriod made up to look friendly to toddlers, with two cheerful eyes and a nose painted on “above” the hole you shit into… The implication is “Yes that’s right boys and girls, the proper way to rid your body of nasty dirty filthy excrement is to defecate into your friends’ mouths.” Not in my house! ---
**Author:** ![Sample\_the\_Dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8797f3/32.png) [@Sample\_the\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sample_the_Dog)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2004, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-marketing-concepts/237198/95 "2004-04-14T00:36:54Z")
Which American fast food place used to run that ad for their chicken nuggets with the slogan “Ain’t nothin’ like the real thing, baby”? I never could watch that without thinking, “Damn right it ain’t”. ---
**Author:** ![Tentacle\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba9def/32.png) [@Tentacle\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tentacle_Monster)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2004, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-marketing-concepts/237198/96 "2004-04-14T00:48:02Z")
That Dell ad with the “computer buying basic training”. At the end, there’s a guy on his face in the mud and pouring rain, yelling “I STILL DON’T KNOW HOW TO FORMAT MY HARD DRIVE!” Those charming fellows in the Smokey the Bear hats (Drill Instructors, or Technical Instructor “TI” in the Air Force) are, simply put, masters of high-speed education. If there exists a person who couldn’t figure out how to format a hard drive, and it had gotten to the point where the TI had them out, one-on-one, in the rain and muck; that person probably shouldn’t own a computer. Give 'em a typewriter and an Etch-A-Sketch, for Og’s sake. ---
**Author:** ![1000monkeys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/7cd45c/32.png) [@1000monkeys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/1000monkeys)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2004, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-marketing-concepts/237198/97 "2004-04-14T01:02:23Z")
**"What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas"** o.k., I understand the concept. and , the ads are rather well done. but, why? you’ve just gone and outed your key demographic. will the new ads be? **"Nothing Happens in Vegas anymore since your suspicious wives and/or girlfriends will no longer let you go"** ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2004, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-marketing-concepts/237198/98 "2004-04-14T01:13:54Z")
> [@1000monkeys](#): > > **"What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas"** > > o.k., I understand the concept. > and , the ads are rather well done. > > but, why? > > you’ve just gone and outed your key demographic. > > will the new ads be? > > **"Nothing Happens in Vegas anymore since your suspicious wives and/or girlfriends will no longer let you go"** [Bill Simmons](http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/040409), is that you? ---
**Author:** ![Sample\_the\_Dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8797f3/32.png) [@Sample\_the\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sample_the_Dog)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2004, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-marketing-concepts/237198/99 "2004-04-14T01:28:25Z")
What about that Tampax ad for the assorted box of tampons: “Making periods more convenient, one box at a time”. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![1000monkeys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/7cd45c/32.png) [@1000monkeys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/1000monkeys)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2004, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-marketing-concepts/237198/100 "2004-04-14T01:38:48Z")
**Dooku** - I have seen that column, a friend of mine forwarded it to me yesterday. I dont generally read it, but because I have been complaining of this for weeks it was sent to me, I suppose, to show that someone at least agreed with me. Don’t know if I’m happy about it, or not. I am glad the thought will acheive the greater exposure [ESPN.com](http://ESPN.com) can grant it, but as I have no way of proving my opinion is original. Though, to be completely honest I dont suppose it is truly an original thought as I have arrived at it after being grilled by a girlfriend whilst attempting to plan a Memorial Day trip to Vegas for the past month. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-marketing-concepts/237198.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-marketing-concepts/237198.md?page=6)