Best of the Worst Ads

Late breaking: after I posted this old stuff, Def Tech supplies us with a recent example of "doesn't anyone review this crap?"
See Boeing Says "Doh!"

---

Over the years, the Wood-Charles News Service used to run the occasional set
of critiques (read: scathingly sarcastic rants) about bad IT and other advertising. Here's a compendium of some of the more scathing. Enjoy.

---

Starting off, we reviewed a huge multi-page spread from Gateway. Their
(inspired, no?) buzzphrase was, "Let's Talk." So the ad we're looking at
shows a not-too-bright-looking individual on what we assume is a golf course
in North (or is it South?) Dakota (you can tell because there's no horizon).
The headlines say: "Let's talk about getting connected. Let's talk about
graphite-shafted irons. Let's talk about a nine handicap."

On the facing page, the copy says: "Chris is always looking to improve his
game. We tailor made his PC with a ten gig hard drive and a 19- inch monitor (18" viewable). Now Chris can download tons of files into his "golf tips" folder and view them on a spacious course."

Chris is such a poor golfer that he needs 10 gig of tips? And he needs a 19-inch
monitor to read 'em? Maybe Chris' problem is his eyesight. The conference call -- probably at 5:30 in the afternoon, when the marketing idiot who approved this thing was anxious to get out on the golf course himself -- seems to have mixed up positioning ("... people hate work -- give it a recreational flavor ...") and featurism ("... 10 gig hard drive, 19 inch monitor, all that techie stuff ..."). This is what you get when you hire people who play golf.

Oh, and it goes on. In the following pages, we're introduced to Marne, who appears to have something to do with movies -- at least she poses behind a 16mm camera with her hair in her eyes -- and needed a lap top to "... blow them away;" the Lanphiers, a family whose Gateway "high- resolution TV, DVD player, stereo, gaming station, and PC (Internet ready) keep them on the edge of technology and ahead of their neighbors ('Let's talk about a digital playground ... we'd never have to leave the sofa';" and Emily who decorated the garage with banners to welcome her brother home from college.

So the message is, Gateway's customers are golf-playing slackers, hype artists,
couch-potato families, and annoying, precocious little brats? Um, do you sell servers? Does any of this stuff perform? I need 20 workstations by tomorrow night -- sorry, Sir, you need to talk to Dell. They do that boring business stuff.

The I-don't-give-a-rat's-ass award: Micrografx' FlowCharter ad. "Discover Why Ford Chose the World's Most Productive Diagramming Tool. When Ford's Customer Service Division faced the daunting challenge of documenting all of its business processes to obtain ISO 9000 registration ..."

And finally: the I-was-visualizing-something-quite-else award: Visoneer makes OCR software, and their ad is supposed to pitch the product's capabilities in scanning beat-up, crumpled, stained legacy documents. But what the headline says is, "Visioneer ProOCD100 handles even the most degraded documents ..."

---

An ad for some kind of ludicrously expensive watch: So here's the concept: the primary illustration is a full-page duotone image, run in dark blue so it looks like twilight. We see a sort of Asian-looking scene -- could be rice paddies, I suppose -- anyway, water with planted rows of vegetation sticking up. There's a tree and mountains in the distance. In the middle ground, seen from behind, is a young woman. She's wearing a white, untucked shirt, and she may or may not have any pants on -- hard to say. She's riding on an elephant, and the elephant is pulling a rustic-looking log raft. On the raft is a Harley-Davidson Motorcycle. Oh, and the headline is "Explore new dimensions in time."

Now, I suppose it's possible (hell, it's certain) that the people who created and paid for this ad weren't aware of Harley's unenviable reputation for spending a lot of time being trucked and trailered around, rather than running under their own power. They probably didn't know that "What's the first thing a new Harley owner buys for his bike? A pickup truck." is a well-worn cheap shot, flung around the net and elsewhere. So we can let 'em off on that point, I guess. But what is this ad supposed to say to the viewer? "If you're going to be incredibly late getting home because you've somehow wandered into Vietnam and off the road on your bike and had to borrow some villager's' elephant and raft, at least you'll know HOW late?" Or, "The next time you're selling Harleys to starving third world refugees, be sure you bring a couple of fantastically expensive watches to bribe the customs officials with?" Or maybe, "This thing costs so much that looking at the price tag will trigger a halucinatory episode much like the one this ad's art director must have been having?" Kind of makes a Swatch look good, don't you think?

---

And, in the "At least we're being honest with you," category, there's the EDS ad that features a scientist-like fellow, proudly pointing a pointer at a chalk board (how 60's!) on which is scrawled "1 + 1 = 3." Uh-huh. That's certainly the EDS I'm familiar with.

---

First place in the "What are you trying to tell me?" category goes to Oracle workgroup 2000 (what a great product name! How'd they ever think of that?) for their half-page, across the gutter spread of 10 nude infants with a URL painted on their ethnically diverse arses. I'm not kidding a bit: 10 unclothed juveniles with a web page address on their butts. What does this mean? "Oracle is as slick as a baby's behind?" "Build client server applications with this thing, and you'll wish you were home changing diapers?"

---

Another good one is AT&T Paradyne's nasty-looking ad that asserts, "Where you are is sick of hearing the word "access" without knowing what it means." Where I am is sick of illiterate-sounding horseshit like this headline.

---

But the winner had to be Make systems' ad for NetMaker XA. A simple but elegant concept: "At last (don't you love ads that start, "at last?") software tools that'll make any network manager look good." This headline runs next to a photo of a man holding up the product CDROM. His head is in some sort of chrome thing (a hairdryer, I guess, since he's wearing curlers), his cheeks and jaw line have been smeared with white goop, and each eye is covered with a slice of cucumber. I suppose the idea is that he's getting a beauty treatment ...? If so, this has to be the worst concept execution I've seen in years; if not, then I just flat don't get it. "Use this product and you'll get vegetables stuck on your face?" All together, now: "I don't think so."

---

What we have in front of us, presumably because we're an AMA (M as in "Motorcyclist," not "Medical." How Politically incorrect do you think we are, anyway?) member and they sell their mailing lists, is a catalogue from Harley, specifically their "Motorclothes" catalogue. Now, when I see the word "motorclothes," I tend to think of oily red flannel rags or perhaps deeply stained, railroad-striped overalls with "Vinnie" or "Dick" (or "dick") embroidered on 'em. These items are not listed in Harley's catalogue, however. What we do have here is a wide range of wildly impractical leather jackets, illustrated with a series of feature icons, so you can tell at a glance which ones feature "action back" and "rotated shoulders." There are also leather shirts, leather chaps, leather pants (in black or what looks suspiciously like left-over seventies "wet look" red), leather boots, leather gloves, leather hats, and leather fanny packs, all bearing that Harley logo. For the ladies, there are shirts, sleeveless shirts, shirts meant to be tied off at the midriff, tank tops, denim tank tops, denim shirts with and without sleeves, jacquard lace bodysuits (really), and stretch denim skirts (very practical motorwear there, boy), all, again, Harley- emblazoned.

But what makes this such an interesting document is not the predictable range of merchandise, but the "theme" or whatever you'd like to call it. It's a celebration of Milwaukee, that gritty, working man's town. It features shots of great places around Milwaukee, full of happy Harley owners, doing all that great, rugged stuff Harley guys and gals do. For example, hanging out at an espresso shoppe. Watching the sunrise. Standing around at the Laundromat (The Laundromat!?! Yes, it's true. And the small, rectangular object that "Dana" is holding in his right hand as he leans on a dryer and models the Primary Denim Vest and Race Team Watch is not a pack of smokes, it's an individual-sized package of detergent. But will this bad boy share it with "Mavis" -- Zip-Front Denim Jacket -- and "Joseph" -- RWB II Vest and Long-Sleeve Henley?)

On other pages, we see "Rod" and "Deana," posing on their hawg, having apparently just taken "A Great Short Ride: Holy Hill Area, from Milwaukee, 94 West to 45 North, 20 miles." Twenty whole miles and no pickup truck in sight! Duuude! And then we run across "Antonia," "Tosca," and "Jamie," three naughty girlies if we ever saw any, perched on bar stools at a "Great Late Night Hangout, the Up and Under Pub." Of course, since these are nineties naughty girlies, they're in the no smoking section and the pints on the table are apparently Cokes, but, hey, they've probably got "My Rug Rat is an Honor Student at East Milwaukee Middle School" stickers on their Sportsters.

But our favorite, especially given the graying of your Editorial staff, is the page intended to symbolize (we assume) the older Harley guy. It's "Sam" and "Mike," clearly two old dudes who've been on the long march with Harley, probably have panheads sitting in the garage, and are -- Mike, anyway -- coifed like an Arthur Andersen Senior Partner. They're both showing their independent spirit by wearing jeans and leather vests with NO watch chains, probably planning their next ride-by shooting of a rival corporation -- that is, gang, and ... eating popcorn in a movie theatre lobby. If you look closely, you can just see the wire that Sam's wearing and his BATF badge peeking out from under his Harley Holdout Holster.

---

New Review on Culintel

Finally had a chance to create some new content on the culinary intelligence site. Check out the review of the Sleek Chrome Beauty at CII.

What would Imus Do?

The vaguely libertarian hoonyack, Don Imus, whose contribution to American thought is somewhat less than that of George Will (although more coherent and generally more humanitarian) has gotten himself into a huge amount of trouble by referring to the Rutgers Womens' basketball team as "nappy headed ho's," apparently because they lost a game. This is what passes for logic on the talk radio circuit, I guess. Anyway, the following 1999 WCA article is the closest thing I could find to a related topic -- pretty thin, and the reference at the end is to Columbine, which makes it not especially funny, but you can always petition MSNBC to have me fired, right along with Imus.

---

19990421

IMPLICATIONS, ASSERTIONS

Ann Arbor: So, we saw a fascinating bumper sticker this week: "Kids who hunt, trap, and fish don't mug old ladies."

Now, they couldn't put it on a bumper sticker if it weren't true, so we guess we must have missed the write-up -- probably it was that issue of American Demographics that we loaned to the neighbors -- on the research behind this striking fact. We assume it was survey-based, probably one of those questionnaires that say: "Please respond with a number from 1 to 10, where 1 indicates strong disagreement and 10 indicates strong agreement with the following statements: When I feel angry, I relax by visualizing small, furry animals caught in a steel trap until they drown or chew their leg off. I prefer to visualize old ladies drowning or chewing their legs off. If there are any legs to be chewed off, I prefer to do it myself..." You get the idea. Clearly, the outcome showed that killing small, defenseless creatures releases a substantial portion of the natural antipathy that most kids feel toward the elderly, and acts as a healthy, cathartic outlet for their entirely understandable disdain for persons of longevity.

Now, before any of our flannel-shirted friends start foaming at the mouth, let us hasten to point out that Wood-Charles is not agin a bit of huntin', no indeed. Nor are we supporters of that somewhat extreme group whose name a famous Ann Arbor system administrator paraphrases as People for the Eating of Tasty Animals. Nor do we condone the clandestine release of thousands of farmed mink into the peaceful English countryside, no matter how terribly, terribly funny ... sad! Sad, I mean, it might be. But we are and have long been keen supporters of People for the Profitable Use of Social Science, and barring a few quibbles about reproducibility, we see this as just the tip of a large, lucrative iceberg: consider the money to be made with bumper stickers of the form, " who do X, don't do Y."

"Code that checks return values doesn't seg fault."

"Presidents who bomb third world dictatorships are probably too tired to fondle the help."

"Kids who mug old ladies don't need to write stupid bumper stickers for a living."

"Old ladies who hunt, trap, and fish are too well- armed to get mugged."

Now, the above was written before this week's events in Colorado. Wonder if those boys were outdoorsmen?

--

The WCA News Service has been brought to you by the Odd Town Tavern in foggy, damp downtown Ann Arbor, where the bumperstickers read, "Mini-vans don't drive the wrong way down Ashley: young parents with 3 children, a Chihuahua, and a cell phone do," and "When Volvos are outlawed, only people congenitally unable to drive will have Volvos, um, kind of like it is now, I guess, oh, never mind."

- 30 -

Not exactly hardboiled eggs, but ...

An easter video starring Coney Dog.

Bad books by bad people

"The Secret" -- unmitigated rubbish, selling visiualization to po' folks. Why isn't this stuff illegal?

For no good reason except the weather ...

Here's a 1999 post from the Wood-Charles News Service -- sort of appropos, with all the Daimler-Chrysler news and so on, plus, hey, it's April 6th and it's snowed, off and on most of the day.

---

I REMEMBER BABYLON

Ann Arbor: Transitional moments, moments of preparation, tinged with foreboding. So you're sitting around the table, finishing the toasted bagel, checking on a recipe to see what you might have to pick up for dinner, maybe still in your stocking feet. You're 'not ready' to go out yet. But eventually, the minute hand crosses a predetermined point along its arc, and it's time to 'get ready.' And lately, as we put on boots, rinse out the thermos mug, make sure the keys are in the proper pocket, grab the parka off the rack, I hear the soundtrack from Apocalypse Now in the background, the scene where Duvall's battalion is saddling up to go take Charlie's point away from him -- helicopter turbines spinning up, troopers loading magazines, someone's nervous musical quote: "dum da da DUM dum, dum da da DUM dum..."

"I don't know, Sir. It's pretty hairy out there. That's Charlie's driveway!"

"CHARLIE DON'T SHOVEL!"

--

DESTRUCTIVE ANACHRONISM

Ann Arbor: There was a story in UPI's Michigan daybook, quoted here in total:

"Man Holds Up Bank With Crossbow - (MATTAWAN) -- The F-B-I says they have never seen a robbery quite like it. A man brandishing a mini-crossbow held up a bank in Mattawan. There's no report how much cash was taken in the robbery at the Kalamazoo County State Bank. There are no reported injuries and police have no suspects. Authorities say it's the first time they've ever heard of a crossbow being used to rob a bank."

Later reports indicated that police are seeking a short, bearded man, dressed in striped tights and a slashed white overshirt with a bright red undershirt pulled through the slashes. He was said to be wearing a leather jerkin and a floppy hat with a long feather, carrying a katzbalger as well as the crossbow, and driving an unlicensed oxcart with the bumper sticker, "Free the Canton of Uri." Although no one was injured in the incident, the bank manager was forced to stand with an apple on his head until the perpetrator had left the bank.

In an apparently unrelated incident, a convenience store in Wayne was held up by a large group of men and women dressed as Munro's regiment of foot, circa 1745. They took all the brown ale the store had, but fled at the appearance of an off-duty Wayne police officer, dressed as Prince Charles Edward Stuart.

Meanwhile, Ford Motor Company, rumored for some weeks now to be in search of a foreign acquisition, set aside stories of a merger with Volvo, BMW, Honda, or Moto Guzzi, and confirmed that it would be attempting a hostile takeover of the Duchy of Milan. That some action was forthcoming had been indicated by ads being run in German, French, and Genoese newspapers, offering "well-paid, temporary employment" to experienced pikemen, arquebusiers, and doppelsoldners, and the otherwise inexplicable presence of a large train of siege guns in Ford's booth at the International Auto Show.

Ford President and CEO, Jac Nasser, reiterated his commitment to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, but would not rule out the use of trebuchets to fling dead horses at the Milanese legal team.

--

The Wood-Charles news service has been brought to you by the Odd Town Tavern, located at the corner of a large pile of snow and a vast, frozen pile of snow, in beautiful downtown Pile 'o Snow, Michigan, and by a shadowy group of investors, dressed as the Guise family and Don John of Austria.

- 30 -

Who's an expert, again.

Another take on blog-dom, Wiki-wackiness, and the odd notion that if you can type, you must know something.

Enthusiams and necessities coincide

---

A few years back, I built a collection of newly-manufactured, retro-form pocket knives from Queen Steel's Schatt and Morgan label -- among the styles I liked were "Doctor's Knives," or "Pillbusters," so-called because they featured a flat bolster on the back, suitable for crushing a pill into powder, and usually a long, spatula-shaped blade for counting pills. Never thought I'd actually use one of them, but here it is, pressed into service for counting out 10 4-mg decadron tablets every morning.

French Release UFO Archives

If you saw this or one of the similar articles, you probably tried to look at it and discovered that the demand had crashed the server CNES was using. Now, several days later, they've recovered and you can actually get to the PDFs. My French is just barely up to reading the academic lingo, but I've waded through a couple of statistical articles, and it's way slow going -- perhaps a preview of how not-earth-shaking it will be when and if the US Govt is coerced into releasing more of the data it has. As the skeptics say, "no little green men yet, guys."

French UFO Info

Cabinet, W-house staffers Fire Bush

Karl Rove, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Harriet Myers, and Vice President Dick Cheney held a joint press conference this morning to announce that they had asked President George W. Bush for his resignation. "We just thought it was time," said Rove, "kind of a first strike sort of thing."

For another April 1st take on this, see the lead story on DefenseTech.