# Stunningly pathetic reasons to use a product proferred by ads. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 7, 2008, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stunningly-pathetic-reasons-to-use-a-product-proferred-by-ads/462475 "2008-09-07T11:44:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Crown\_Prince\_of\_Irony](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ed655f/32.png) [@Crown\_Prince\_of\_Irony](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crown_Prince_of_Irony)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2008, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stunningly-pathetic-reasons-to-use-a-product-proferred-by-ads/462475/61 "2008-09-11T04:37:28Z")
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you [the Tiddy Bear](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJUBFkVrk9s). In order to be compelled to buy this product, you have to be so stupid that you can’t figure out a freakin’ seat belt shoulder strap. In addition, you also have to be able to order the damn thing over the phone without cracking up (“heh heh - can I order two Tiddies?”), and be willing to drive around with a deformed stuffed animal on your chest. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stunningly-pathetic-reasons-to-use-a-product-proferred-by-ads/462475/62 "2008-09-15T01:33:40Z")
There’s one of these in the paper today. You’ll need to know CTP is a form of car insurance here (Comprehensive Third Party) and GIO is a leading provider of same. The head is “How low can your CTP go?”. The text then says “GIO has one of the lowest CTP rates around for eligible drivers”. **One** of the lowest? If you’re not **the** lowest, why base your entire ad on price? ---
**Author:** ![WF\_Tomba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d9b06d/32.png) [@WF\_Tomba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WF_Tomba)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stunningly-pathetic-reasons-to-use-a-product-proferred-by-ads/462475/63 "2008-09-15T01:43:10Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Remember the pump toothpaste fad? The commercials always showed people trapped in a hellish world of lost toothpaste caps and ridiculously excessive glops of toothpaste because no one could manage using the old fashioned tubes. > > Now that we’re pretty much back to tubes, they all seem to have a flip-top rather than a screw on top so at least half of our nightmares have been banished. Some amazing, highly-evolved toothpaste tubes have _both_! It’s the New Jerusalem! Seen the other day: “With Secret Flawless, you have five reasons to show your underarms!” Please, don’t bother. ---
**Author:** ![neutron\_star](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/51bf81/32.png) [@neutron\_star](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neutron_star)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stunningly-pathetic-reasons-to-use-a-product-proferred-by-ads/462475/64 "2008-09-15T11:18:29Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > Not _as soft and strong_, notice - if you read it properly, the only area in which it claims to be equal to Andrex is in length. :rolleyes: Why does your toilet paper sound like it should be the name of an anabolic steroid? ---
**Author:** ![Ro\_Carter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7feea3/32.png) [@Ro\_Carter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ro_Carter)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stunningly-pathetic-reasons-to-use-a-product-proferred-by-ads/462475/65 "2008-09-15T17:55:17Z")
> [@Crown\_Prince\_of\_Irony](#): > > Ladies and gentlemen, I give you [the Tiddy Bear](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJUBFkVrk9s). > > In order to be compelled to buy this product, you have to be so stupid that you can’t figure out a freakin’ seat belt shoulder strap. In addition, you also have to be able to order the damn thing over the phone without cracking up (“heh heh - can I order two Tiddies?”), and be willing to drive around with a deformed stuffed animal on your chest. I mean, what woman wouldn’t want to drive around with a malformed teddy bear that looks like it’s been soaked in something unpleasant strapped to her chest in such a way that the bear’s face is in her cleavage? ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stunningly-pathetic-reasons-to-use-a-product-proferred-by-ads/462475/66 "2008-09-15T18:06:27Z")
> [@Ro\_Carter](#): > > I mean, what woman wouldn’t want to drive around with a malformed teddy bear that looks like it’s been soaked in something unpleasant strapped to her chest in such a way that the bear’s face is in her cleavage? You and your nonrhetorical questions. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![EarhornJones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5f9b8f/32.png) [@EarhornJones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EarhornJones)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stunningly-pathetic-reasons-to-use-a-product-proferred-by-ads/462475/67 "2008-09-15T19:52:17Z")
My entry is for the glucose meter that is advertised as eliminating the hassles of “coding,” and shows what is presumably an elderly mother and her adult daughter, who are now happily able to operate their meter(s). For the uninitiated, this “coding” is making sure that the meter is calibrated to the test strips. This is accomplished by comparing the number on the bottle of strips, to the number on the LCD screen. It takes about 2 seconds. On top of this, every strip in the bottle has the same “code,” so it’s literally something that you have to do once every 30 tests or so. Preparing the lancet, stabbing yourself, getting the test strip into the little slot correctly, getting your blood into that strip - that’s all easy peasy, as long as we can bypass the horror of comparing two numbers! I won’t even mention the JitterBug geriatric cell phone with padded ear piece that “really helps!” ---
**Author:** ![BlackNGold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@BlackNGold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackNGold)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stunningly-pathetic-reasons-to-use-a-product-proferred-by-ads/462475/68 "2008-09-15T20:30:31Z")
There’s an ad out now for some soy bean juice product that has people raving about how good it is compared to milk. The first comment from the woman - “I tried it, it was COLD…” She then goes on to extol its other virtues. Excuse me - “COLD”!?! That’s the first selling point you can think to name in your commercial? ---
**Author:** ![Tamex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@Tamex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamex)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stunningly-pathetic-reasons-to-use-a-product-proferred-by-ads/462475/69 "2008-09-15T21:31:28Z")
> [@EarhornJones](#): > > I won’t even mention the JitterBug geriatric cell phone with padded ear piece that “really helps!” Is that the one that comes with operator assistance? Believe me, as a former landline telephone operator, I know there is a huge market out there for the JitterBug. There are many old people who never quite got the hang of touch tones–hard to imagine them catching on to a traditional cell phone. And I feel for those operators, and hope they are well-paid. They deserve it. ---
**Author:** ![Mahna\_Mahna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47c2d/32.png) [@Mahna\_Mahna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahna_Mahna)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stunningly-pathetic-reasons-to-use-a-product-proferred-by-ads/462475/70 "2008-09-15T22:54:24Z")
> [@EarhornJones](#): > > I won’t even mention the JitterBug geriatric cell phone with padded ear piece that “really helps!” Trust me, the market for a simple, easy-to-use phone that has big buttons, big display text and no flashy apps is HUGE. I had the dubious pleasure of helping a large number of cellular customers migrate to shiny new GSM ones when my employer shut down their analog network a couple of years ago. Not all that surprisingly, most of those customers were senior citizens who had been using the same basic analog phone for the past 10-15 yrs. All they wanted from a cell phone was the ability to make and receive calls in case of emergency. That’s it. No bells, no whistles, no flashy animated menus or flip-out keyboards or on-board video. I’d have given my left tit for an option like the Jitterbug for these poor folks, rather than the wonderful options of Teensy Complicated Phone A and Even Teensier Complicated Phone B picked out by our ever-responsive marketing team. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2008, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stunningly-pathetic-reasons-to-use-a-product-proferred-by-ads/462475/71 "2008-09-25T17:59:44Z")
Don’t know if this counts as an ad, but I find it stupid everytime I look at it: outside my place of work, at the street-level entrance to the subway, there are a couple of those self-service machines for buying newspapers (Bild, SZ, tz, AZ). On the front are metal plates where a poster with the latest/most important teaser in big bold letters can be put up. On one of the machines is the slogan (in English, although I’m in Germany) “Zeitung (newspaper) to go”. Now, “coffee to go” (that is, coffee in a paper cup with a lid on it to take with you as opposed to coffee in a porcelain cup you have to drink at the table of the little cafe/bakery/snack bar) makes sense. But what kind of newspaper \* isn’t\* “to go”??? ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2008, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stunningly-pathetic-reasons-to-use-a-product-proferred-by-ads/462475/72 "2008-09-25T18:18:58Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > Don’t know if this counts as an ad, but I find it stupid everytime I look at it: outside my place of work, at the street-level entrance to the subway, there are a couple of those self-service machines for buying newspapers (Bild, SZ, tz, AZ). On the front are metal plates where a poster with the latest/most important teaser in big bold letters can be put up. On one of the machines is the slogan (in English, although I’m in Germany) “Zeitung (newspaper) to go”. > > Now, “coffee to go” (that is, coffee in a paper cup with a lid on it to take with you as opposed to coffee in a porcelain cup you have to drink at the table of the little cafe/bakery/snack bar) makes sense. But what kind of newspaper \* isn’t\* “to go”??? The one that arrives at my doorstep every morning?🙂 ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2008, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stunningly-pathetic-reasons-to-use-a-product-proferred-by-ads/462475/73 "2008-09-25T18:27:04Z")
> [@Student\_Driver](#): > > In the 1970s, home computer and video game manufacturers were still trying to figure out how to sell systems to people who weren’t interested in computing for computing’s sake, or people who weren’t interested in games. > > For whatever reason, a lot of companies hit on advertising their biorhythm-computing abilities. Biorhythms are interesting as a simple programming exercise (mathematically simple, fits into little memory), but as killer apps? Beats the heck out of the OTHER killer app for home computers–use one to store your recipes! No longer will you have to open that box of 3x5 cards or inconvenient cookbook! Just stick the cassette containing all your favorites (that you manually keyed in) and hope that the cassette doesn’t crap out before your computer, running at a blazing 1mHz and reading the tape at the dizzying speed of 500 to 1500 baud, finds the recipe you had in mind. And that you managed to load the program successfully in the first place. Biorythms at least gave the marketing guys cool graphics for the ads. Even if all the computer could display were alphanumerics and pseudographic blocks created by chopping a solid block into up to four rectangles. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stunningly-pathetic-reasons-to-use-a-product-proferred-by-ads/462475/74 "2008-09-26T00:42:41Z")
> [@Sigmagirl](#): > > The one that arrives at my doorstep every morning?🙂 You have to read that at home? You can’t take it away with you - on the go? ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stunningly-pathetic-reasons-to-use-a-product-proferred-by-ads/462475/75 "2008-09-26T03:12:15Z")
Don’t you just hate it when you’re driving in your minivan and you find your road blocked by a downed hot air balloon filled with middle-aged, overweight nudists who you naturally offer to give a lift and when they’re all in your back seat and you have to back up to get around the balloon but you don’t want to turn around and look out the back window because you’d see them all in their nakedness? This happened to me so often that I’m really glad that I bought a minivan with a backup camera and in-dash monitor, so I can back up without turning around and seeing all the middle-aged, overweight nudists in my back seat. Best buy of my life! ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stunningly-pathetic-reasons-to-use-a-product-proferred-by-ads/462475/76 "2008-09-26T05:58:41Z")
> [@Ro\_Carter](#): > > I mean, what woman wouldn’t want to drive around with a malformed teddy bear that looks like it’s been soaked in something unpleasant strapped to her chest in such a way that the bear’s face is in her cleavage? I was thinking I’d like to _be_ a Tiddy Bear – adult female division. “Not on your shoulder, honey; over there . . . there . . . Oh, yum. You say we’re going all the way to L.A.? Sweet!” ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stunningly-pathetic-reasons-to-use-a-product-proferred-by-ads/462475/77 "2008-09-26T13:51:36Z")
☹ > [@constanze](#): > > You have to read that at home? You can’t take it away with you - on the go? I’m not supposed to drape the paper over the steering wheel anymore.☹ ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stunningly-pathetic-reasons-to-use-a-product-proferred-by-ads/462475/78 "2008-09-26T14:26:53Z")
Vaguely related to this thread, I keep seeing an advert (on the side of a taxi cab, for some reason) for a tattoo parlour. It reads: **UNDER THE SKIN** A **new** concept in tattooing! Er, no, actually that’s a pretty well established concept in tattooing. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stunningly-pathetic-reasons-to-use-a-product-proferred-by-ads/462475/79 "2008-09-26T14:55:05Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > Vaguely related to this thread, I keep seeing an advert (on the side of a taxi cab, for some reason) for a tattoo parlour. It reads: > > **UNDER THE SKIN** > A **new** concept in tattooing! > Er, no, actually that’s a pretty well established concept in tattooing. :rolleyes: [tedious humor killing pedantry] Well, actually tattoos go inside the skin - in the dermis. Putting one under the skin - all the way under the hypodermis - would be…weird. And useless, since the ink would be carried away by the blood and that tatt would fade in a matter of weeks. I know there are a couple of different [electronic](http://www.physorg.com/news122819670.html) [tattoos](http://hight3ch.com/post/philips-electronic-tattoo-concept/)still in the concept phase that would actually go under the skin, but they’re not in use yet, AFAIK. But maybe your local parlor is part of a research project. Look for dudes with changing tattoos near you soon! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Peste](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Doctor\_Peste](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Peste)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stunningly-pathetic-reasons-to-use-a-product-proferred-by-ads/462475/80 "2008-09-26T23:23:27Z")
Gotta agree with the HeadOn Supporter faction… homeopathics aside, one of the main constituents is menthol. If you get tension headaches like I do (i.e., accompanied by an absolute b\*\*\*\* kitty of a neckache), having a little chapstick-esque doodad to rub directly on what ails ya can be a godsend. That said, however, I have to agree that it IS one of the most stunningly demented commercials I’ve ever seen. My personal favorites, however, have to be these little late night/early morning infomercials for sets of decorative knives. I’m sure they’re only on in the DE/MD/possibly PA or VA area… but the slow, sensual, creepy pederast-growl the advertiser uses to talk about them is absolutely PRICELESS. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stunningly-pathetic-reasons-to-use-a-product-proferred-by-ads/462475.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stunningly-pathetic-reasons-to-use-a-product-proferred-by-ads/462475.md?page=5)