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Category — Bad Advertising

Kitten Mittons & Dick Towels: The Reason Why ‘Always Sunny’ is the Best Show on TV Right Now

In the Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode “Paddy’s Pub: Home of the Original Kitten Mittens”, the gang tries to come up with various marketable products in an attempt to build the Paddy’s Pub brand.

Frank comes up with a gun that shoots alcohol directly into your mouth, Mac comes up with the dick-towel (http://www.dicktowel.com/), and Charlie comes up with the now world-famous ‘Kitten Mittons’. An excellent episode about advertising and marketing. Best episode yet. Check out the complete, uncensored Dick Towel video after the jump:
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October 14, 2010   Comments Off

Biggest Asshole in the World: The Silly Goose at Artifax in Philadelphia

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I occasionally smoke Djarum cigarettes, and so does my girlfriend. I used to go to a little shop in Northeast Philadelphia called Artifax for them. But unfortunately, after discovering the world’s biggest asshole is currently in their employ, I will no longer be patronizing their establishment.

First of all, I’ll be 30 this week. I’m 6 feet tall, about 175 pounds, and I have a 5 o’clock shadow an hour after I shave. Now, he says I look under 26 so he needed to see my ID. That’s fine, that’s his prerogative, it’s a bit of a douche thing to do since I’m clearly over 18, but it’s fine… IF I were trying to buy cigarettes. The thing is, I wasn’t. Read on…
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May 14, 2009   13 Comments

WTF: Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus Trailer

Ahhh… Debbie Gibson and Lorenzo Lamas, together at last. Plus this movie has a mega shark and a giant octopus, apparently. How can it go wrong? My answer: In every possible way.

I don’t know what the makers of this movie were thinking. Maybe they wanted this movie to be the next Snakes on a Plane; maybe they had a lifelong vision of a mega shark and a giant octopus doing battle, and finally had the chance to make that vision a reality on the big screen. Maybe this is some sort of tax scheme or ploy a la “The Producers”. Who knows. Who cares. Whatever.

May 13, 2009   Comments Off

Squeal, Boy: Swine Flu PSAs

Swine Flu public service announcements from 1976.

In 1976, one single army recruit died from the so-called Swine Flu. People panicked, the government panicked. After the dust cleared, the government had wasted hundreds of millions of dollars, and there were over 500 people crippled for life via Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) caused by the vaccine. Also, the vaccine killed more people than the flu did.

Moral:
Government is more dangerous than Swine flu. Don’t panic.

April 28, 2009   Comments Off

Joel Bauer and the Art of the Business Card: “OMG, It even has a watermark…”


This is Joel Bauer, his card doesn’t belong in a Rolodex, it belongs on your desk. Framed. Where the picture of your daughter used to be.
-Clay

This is Joel Bauer, and his business card would go directly into my trash bin. His whole argument for why it’s a great card, the fact that it’s non-traditional and oddly shaped, is the reason. The fact that it doesn’t conform to the traditional 3.5″ by 2″ size means that it won’t fit in my wallet or business card holder. That, compounded by the fact that this guy is obviously a douche and people will see that when they meet him and get his card, means that his $4 dollar cards are going, more often than not, right in the trash.

He’s right about some things though:
Paper quality is important, and so is the ink quality and color. High gloss is nice, and double-sided cards can be super fantastic, but if you can get your point across on one side, I think it always works better. Too much color and mayhem can make the card distracting. He’s right about the message too, it should tell people what you do in a meaningful way, without being confusing and overly complicated. Most importantly, the card needs contact information. Every possible way of contacting you or your business should be on that card. That means, of course, name, phone number, fax number, email, and website.

After the “read more”, we have a collection of some interesting and quality business card designs that actually do work well, as opposed to Joel’s:
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April 21, 2009   1 Comment

Save Our Cats And Kittens From Fishermen: Or How To Make Lots Of Money Online

Apparently, all you have to do to make money online is invent a fake, but morally reprehensible, tragedy, put together a video about said tragedy, then sell t-shirts.
Oh, I almost forgot… then PROFIT.

The Save Our Cats and Kittens From Fishermen (SOCKFF) video has been making the rounds of the blogosphere for a while now, and still, not many people have called shenanigans on it. That amazes me. This video is obviously fake. It has zero evidence of it’s claim, it doesn’t show any cats being eaten by sharks, it doesn’t show any cats being pierced with hooks (although a gloved man pretends to), it doesn’t show anything really. It only shows black cats supposedly dangling from a hook, and a gloved man pretending to hook a kitten but blocking the camera’s view at the last second. Take a look at the cat dangling frame:
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January 23, 2009   55 Comments

(NSFW) Naked Is The New Black: Selling Clothes With Nudity

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A few months ago I wrote some words about American Apparel’s style of advertising, and how I think they’ve really tapped in to our collective idea of what’s sexy in the internet-pron age. That porn chic style of advertising has been serving them well so far, and just recently, they turned it up a notch and released a few ads with actual nudity. Now, I’m the first to say that some of AA’s original ads were actually more sexually explicit than an image of a woman’s nipple, but it’s still a line, and they’ve crossed it. Whether this will be a positive or a negative for them is still in question.

However, they’re not the only ones flaunting bewbz these days. The skin is spreading. Urban Outfitters has much less clothing on the models than usual in it’s newest catalog. But they’re still shooting in that hazy, soft-focus sepia that we’re so used to, so they can’t say they’re all that cutting edge just yet. Read on to see some pictures of the naked bodies selling clothes:
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January 23, 2009   1 Comment

PETA Renames Fish “Sea Kittens” Because They’re Lunatics

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Doesn’t Savvy look delicious?

Just when I thought I couldn’t hate PETA any more, they go and do something like this. The cult of PETA has decided that fish need better PR, so they’ve replaced the term “fish” with “Sea Kittens”. Yes, Sea Kittens. This is for real, check out their website, and a quote from it:

People don’t seem to like fish. They’re slithery and slimy, and they have eyes on either side of their pointy little heads — which is weird, to say the least. Plus, the small ones nibble at your feet when you’re swimming, and the big ones — well, the big ones will bite your face off if Jaws is anything to go by.

Of course, if you look at it another way, what all this really means is that fish need to fire their PR guy — stat.

Normally, when silly cults with illogical beliefs do bizarre things, it’s funny, and this is no exception, but there is more to PETA than just jackass publicity stunts. The thing about PETA is that they get a good deal of support from regular, generally solid-minded folks; at least, as solid-minded as regular folks can be. Unfortunately, not too many of those regular people really understand what the group is all about. PETA wants total animal liberation, they’ve said it many times. That means no pets, no guide dogs for the blind, no zoos, no fisheries, no beekeeping, no earthworm farms, no animals kept by humans, anywhere; and all those animals would be set free.

On top of that, PETA gives money to the Animal Liberation Front, which is a terrorist group who firebombs buildings and assaults people in the name of total animal liberation. And the money going to these groups is coming from the regular suburban folks who think they’re just helping baby seals. This Sea Kitten business is funny, but PETA’s other business isn’t. Read on to see some videos about how PETA really operates:
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January 13, 2009   9 Comments

Weird Toyota Prius “Commercial” Featuring The Blue Man Group

This looks to me to be a re-edit of some actual footage of the new Toyota Prius commercial. The Blue Man Group is apparently in the commercial, but judging from some of the bizarre, unprofessional cuts used in this video, I don’t think this is the official version. I could be wrong, but something about this video just doesn’t seem right.

Any Adsavvy readers out there care to correct or enlighten me, please do. I’d love to get to the bottom of this.

December 28, 2008   1 Comment

Viva La Fantasía: Marketing Che, The Butcher of La Cabaña Brand

“I think Che had perseverance and morality. Being the underdog and fighting against injustice and standing up for the forgotten moved him so hard. Kind of like Jesus, in a way…”
“I think anyone who buys a T-shirt of Che has gotta be cool. If I see someone with a Che T-shirt, I think, ‘He’s got good taste.’”

-Benicio Del Toro

“To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail … This is a revolution. And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate.”
“If the nuclear missiles had remained (in Cuba), we would have fired them against the heart of the US, including New York City. The victory of socialism is well worth millions of atomic victims.”

-Che “Kind of like Jesus…” Guevara

The irony is thick, as it always is. His face is on suburban t-shirts all around the country, and Hollywood is making a hero out of Che Guevara, aka the butcher of La Cabaña, the man who killed journalists, businessmen and merchants, presided over mass executions, prison labor camps, and caused economic ruin to millions.
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December 28, 2008   4 Comments