Marketing BS

Beside a DIGG article on how 4G is a load of rubbish there is an ad for the new HTC EVO 4G phone

Marketing BS — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 18:38:49 +0000

I just thought this was pretty funny… and an example of targeted ad placement gone wrong!

The article title is: “4G in America: Lies, Lies, and more God Damn Lies”. Then there are two banner ads for the new HTC EVO 4G handset.

Quotes from article on www.intomobile.com…

Listen up America, by the end of this year, and most definitely during 2011, you’re going to be bombarded with advertisements that stretch across all forms of media, tempting you to hop on board a 4G network. Let’s get this out of the way right now: 4G, as the word is currently being used, is nothing but a marketing term...

…Back to the International Telecommunication Union, they’ve said that they’re not going to name which technologies are going to get the prestigious “4G” moniker until October 2010, so from a semantics point of view, any operator saying that they’re building a 4G network is being deceitful and are driven by a bunch of asshole marketers…

…Devices like the HTC EVO 4G are going to be incredibly niche. That device in particular has a 3G CDMA radio that it will use for voice and text messaging, and a WiMAX radio that it will use for data…

Read full article

HTC AD

Cheezburger FAIL Blog

Another article… same problem!

The article title is: “Don’t Buy ’4G’ Phones for 4G Features – Yet”. With the same two banner ads for the new HTC EVO 4G handset.

Read the full article at PCMAG.COM

Shouldn’t it be called ‘Toonie AND a Loonie Tuesday & Thursday’???

Marketing BS — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:46:50 +0000

Nice try Waves but don’t you think this is slightly misleading?

Still a good deal but just poor execution.

Funny how sport is always sponsored by junk food

Marketing BS — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 20:08:35 +0000

Do fast/junk food companies really think that advertising during sporting events and sponsoring athletes and teams will make us think that its OK to consume their products?

The Winter Olympics are in full swing in Vancouver and two of the major sponsors are McDonalds and Coke. If you visit the Coke Canada website you can see the sogo ACTIVE Program link where kids can find sports and activities and different ways to stay healthy. I would suggest drinking less Coke would be a good start! Funnily enough the SOGO slogan is… “the sickest way to live healthy”. McDonald’s on the other hand makes no attempt to mislead people into thinking that their food is healthy.

Below is an ad for a Toronto Raptors competition sponsored by Sprite and Pizza Pizza. It features Hedo Turkoglu sitting on the couch eating pizza, drinking Sprite and watching game tapes. Not the image of an elite sportsperson that most of us would imagine.

External links

Raptors/Sprite/PizzaPizza Promo page

Wikipedia links

Weet-Bix TV commercial from a couple of years ago

Marketing BS — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 05:48:13 +0000

I know this is pretty old news but this ad always sticks in my mind as complete BS and I thought it was worth bringing up.

As many food products do, Sanitarium Australia has cleverly made their Weet-Bix cereal sound much more healthy and appealing than it really is with a clever sentence construction.

Unfortunately I was unable to find a copy of the ad online but the tag-line was about how children that eat Weet-Bix for breakfast are going to be 30% more alert at school than children that don’t eat breakfast. Now this could well be a fact but where it’s misleading is that you could also say… “Children that have a Big Mac meal for breakfast are going to be 30% more alert at school than children that don’t eat breakfast” and this could just as easily be true. In other words, something is better than nothing at breakfast time.

Surprisingly this ad was nominated by Parents Jury for the “2005 Children’s TV Food Advertising Awards”. See an extract below…

Nomination 3: Sanitarium Weet-Bix:
Parents comments:
TV advertisement is great because it shows a child doing well at school because he
has eaten a good breakfast. It promotes the benefits of eating a healthy breakfast to
staying 30% more alert during the day.
FACT:

This is a high fibre breakfast cereal.
Low in fat and salt.
Low in sugar.
Contains no artificial flavourings or colourings.

Download full report:2005_Awards_Project_Report

Flight Centre’s fine print. Not really air ‘fair’

Marketing BS — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:29:15 +0000

How Flight Centre Canada get away with advertising like this I will never know. It’s the only industry where this would ever happen. Can you imagine… “Wow, fuel is only 30c a litre… oh wait… plus 80c tax”. It’s not always such an unbalanced ratio, they just chose the flight with the largest gap between flight cost and tax amount to feature to lure people in.

You will notice that the flight below to Calgary has a tax amount less than that of the airfare. However advertising a price that is roughly one quarter that of the total cost is BS!

Advertised price: $169
Taxes & fees: $465
Actual price: $634

Another example…

So after my clever little play on words in this post title, I saw this advertisement in New York last week… I should be in advertising!