Tag: branding

Everyone could use some emotional support chicken

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Just when you think Popeyes is onto something potentially legendary with their unveiling of Emotional Support Chicken, they have to shoot themselves on the foot and only make it available in a shithole like Philadelphia.  And not just the city itself, but instead the fucking airport, which is already, much like the rest of the city it’s in, one of the biggest blights within the country.

However in spite of my general ambivalence for Philly, I still have to tip my cap to Popeyes for such a hilarious and creative idea, that just tickles my fancy and makes me green with envy that it’s not available everywhere else, or at least Atlanta, so I could get my hands on a box of emotional support chicken as well.

I fly enough to have plenty of aggravation at the current state of the world, where the concept of emotional support animals even exists.  The airline industry has morphed into this hideous symbiotic orgy where the carriers have carte blanche to fuck customers left and right with price gauging, shrinking seats, antiquated boarding procedures and a myriad of things that makes flying amongst the worst occasionally necessary experiences there is, but because there’s an endless demand for travel, passengers are now allowed to get away with shit like emotional support animals, which is basically a bastardized ruse for people to be allowed to fly with their pets.

And frankly, as with most nice things in the world, selfish shitheads ruin and abuse the small pleasures by lying their asses off and proclaiming every Tom, Dick and Harry dog and cat as emotional support animals, or even more offensive, service pets.  There’s no secret that just about anyone can buy on eBay or just make their own service vests for their pets to futilely deceive the world around them that they’re more important than the average pet, and they most certainly capitalize on such inefficient enforcement, by trotting their very-much-not service animals into airports and acting surprised when they defecate in public or on the plane or bite people or attack other fake-ass service animals.

But because the world today sucks, nobody’s really allowed to call out any of these fake fucks, because everyone’s afraid of the one person that actually is legally and medically cleared to have a service animal and their service animal is actually a service animal, and then getting sued, or worse, made viral, because any scene will inevitably be caught by someone’s phone and then put on YouTube.  So despite the fact that there are hundreds of miserable lying fucks, nobody can really stop them.

Continue reading “Everyone could use some emotional support chicken” →

Just because “cool” is in the name doesn’t make it such

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

lol: Braves’ new spring training home unveiled to be CoolToday Park

Leave it to the Atlanta Braves to always put salary over substance, and until 2040, their future Spring Training home will basically forever, be called CoolToday Park; named after a local Sarasota HVAC company.  And despite the undisclosed financial details of the deal, naming rights aren’t cheap, but CoolToday somehow had a couple ten million dollars in order to secure the rights to a baseball stadium for an actual major league club.

Really though, come on now, CoolToday?  And with a logo that makes it look like it’s right out of the 1970’s?  Clearly, the effort doesn’t match nearly the dollar amount spent in order to get these naming rights, but when the day is over, who really cares because of, money?  But to those of us on the outside judging in, it’s a sad and mundane opportunity squandered to get something remotely cool out of the whole charade of the Braves fleecing yet another town in America for another ballpark the country does not need.

But again, leave it to the Braves to ignore everything with any substance in the pursuit of money.  I guess Publix or Red Lobster didn’t want to put in any bids, or be associated with a perpetual loser like the Braves, but damn would I have been excited had either of these native Florida businesses decided to slap their name onto the Braves’ ballpark.  Dare I’d say, it would definitely improve my enthusiasm to know that the company with the immortal chicken tender subs and bakery, or a company with LOBSTER in the name, would be the official home of Braves Spring Training.

I guess it’s no surprise that the Braves settled on some lame HVAC company to name the ballpark after, though.  I mean, from a business standpoint, if any company is going to survive for 20 years, it’s definitely going to be an HVAC company in Florida, and there will probably be no chance that they end up like Denver’s Sports Authority Field, where the naming company went under, but the venue was stuck with their name until it had to be legally changed.

Come on though, “CoolToday Park” sounds about as exciting as a sermon.  But considering how corporately stiff and rigid the Braves management from top to bottom, this is no surprise at all.

Good thing my ballpark journey is for the most part complete.  I can’t say I’d be particularly enthused about having to add an entry for CoolToday Park into my travels.

WWE’s got to ease up on the historic international events

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I have a theory about WWE pay-per-views; do we still call them pay-per-views anymore, considering they’re all included with the WWE Network anyway?  But anyway, I have a theory about the monthly shows that the WWE puts out: the less effort it looks like they put into their title logo cards, then the less effort viewers should expect from the show itself.

Naturally, this isn’t perfect, definitive and doesn’t apply to all shows; WWE Fastlane had quite the impressive graphic treatment in the production of its marketing, buildup and actual show, but the card itself actually turned out to be quite lackluster.  But for the most part, it’s no secret that the WWE dumps more money into their big four ppvs of the year (Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania, SummerSlam, Survivor Series), than they do any other show throughout the year.

And as of this year, 2018, WWE’s gotten into this hysteria over producing shows in other countries, almost for no other reason than to call them historic first-time events, to help drum up interest, hype and other attention.  It started with “The Greatest” Royal Rumble in Saudi Arabia, and was followed by the United Kingdom Championship Tournament, where it was held at, for the very first time, the Royal Albert Hall in London.  This past weekend was the WWE Super Show-Down, which was held, for the very first time, in Melbourne, Australia.  And during Super Show-Down, I found out that there was yet another international show on the horizon, Crown Jewel which is going to be in Saudi Arabia again, but instead in, for the very first time, Riyadh.

As historically monumental as the WWE likes to tout these international events, make no mistake that they are NOT immune from the shitty logo, shitty show logic.  Look no further than the fact that “The Greatest” Royal Rumble logo was literally the same logo used in January’s Royal Rumble, but had the word “Greatest” added to the top of it, and had their accent colors changed to Saudi red, green and white.  Surprising nobody, the show was horribly sub-par, and the events of the show had nearly no impact on storylines, save for the Reigns vs. Lesnar feud.

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lol, idiots are so predictable

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

TL;DR – Nike makes Colin Kaepernick the face of the company; right wing extremists react predictably by burning their possessions

I think of all the tropes that exist in busted-ass America, I think one of my favorites is when a notable company takes a liberal stance on a divisive topic, and people who disagree don’t just disagree, they disagree with fire.  Literally.  As in they set fire to said company’s products that they’ve presumably paid for, owned and used at some point in their lives.  Because they disagree with them politically.

Sometimes it’s not just fire, or fire at all.  People shot their YETI coolers with actual ammunition, and then some people good old fashioned spiked their Keurig coffee makers onto the ground.   But the end result is still the same, that things end up destroyed.

Things, like Nikes and YETIs and Keurigs, that at some point, someone paid money for; money that went into the coffers and accounted into the annual reports of millions and billions of dollars for companies as the aforementioned.

Yeah, people destroy their shit when any of them take a stance on something that not everyone agrees on.  As if destroying them will magically get their money back, which of course is not the case.  So people end up angry and bent out of shape, and on top of that, now have to go out and buy some new sneakers or workout apparel, or a new cooler, or a new coffee maker.

All because they’re attention whores who feel required to make videos of themselves demonstrating their eagerness to waste their own money and resources, all because some people don’t agree with your line of thinking.

Real intelligent reactions, there.

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So savage, you have to respect the tactic

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A week ago, I got a horrible email in my inbox: Chick Fil-A was shutting the door on their wildly popular cow calendar promotion.  Citing after 20 years something something, I couldn’t really make out the rest from the rage that welled up behind my eyes but the point is, Chick Fil-A was ending their calendar, which meant no more monthly free shit ever again.

Obviously, a company like Chick Fil-A doesn’t become go-zillionaires without watching every single nickel and dime, and somewhere in some analytical study, it was deemed that the free shit given out every month on top of the sales of the calendars themselves, don’t really match up to the money is expected to come in as a result.  So regardless of how popular the calendars are, although everyone and their mother knows people only get them for the 12 months of free shit, they’re closing the door on the promotion.

But amidst the outrage caused by Chick Fil-A killing off their calendar, Bojangles swoops onto the stage to announce the launch of their calendar.  Except Bojangles’ calendar is free to join, completely digital, but still offers coupons of free or discounted shit.

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It’s a work

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

TL;DR: Daniel Cormier wins  UFC heavyweight championship, immediately provokes Brock Lesnar afterward, inviting him into the Octagon from the audience

When in doubt, it’s probably a work (read: premeditated).  As the line continues to blur between the UFC and WWE, with stars jumping from one promotion to the other, there’s one thing that has always been crystal clear: the pursuit of money.  Both are businesses, with the goal of making as much money as humanly possible, and despite the fact that one is more legitimately a sport than the other, the objective remains the same.

UFC promoting a Daniel Cormier vs. Brock Lesnar fight will draw millions of viewers, as there’s a legitimate correlation between gigantic numbers and Brock Lesnar fights.  Which equates to a whole lot of money.

WWE having Brock Lesnar as its champion will create a cross-pollination of viewership, drawing interest from UFC fans who want to see Lesnar perform in the fake sport, whether it’s out of curiosity, or to see if any of his three matches he’ll have this year might give away any sort of intel to strengths or weakness for betting purposes.

And in the end, regardless of who wins in the Octagon, both parties and all involved participants stand to make a gigantic payday out of this affair. 

Not that it really matters, but it’s still all probably a work, if you look into the details of the scenario.

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Shouldn’t the slogan be different this time around?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I was outside with the dogs this morning letting them do their business, and I couldn’t help but notice that someone within eyeshot of my own fucking front door had erected a Trump-Pence Make America Great Again campaign sign in their yard.  It’s 2018, and we haven’t even hit the midterms yet; the steam rising from the turd known as the 2016 election has barely dissipated, and this household is already putting their signs up for 2020?  I can barely stand campaign signs in the two months before the presidential election, am I going to have to open my front door and see this shit for two more years?

This is literally what my face does when I think about it.

It’s a mixed household where it’s an elderly man, presumably living with a married child, who has their own children.  Although dad literally does nothing but tool around on a classic Chevelle every single day, the wife of the couple and their kids always smile and wave to me, the Chinaman across the street, whenever we’re outside at the same time.  I wouldn’t expect such a friendly gesture from a household that advertises their particular political tastes, but then again fewer things epitomize white culture than false niceties.  Or perhaps it’s dad with the obvious political preference, with more liberal thinking children.

Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a husband in that household equation. Hm.

Interestingly, this household has Hispanic landscapers who do a fantastic job of maintaining their lawn.  They used to do my lawn as well until I realized that my actual property extended far beyond what we had originally arranged, leading me to have to end my business with them for financial reasons.  But I wonder if they know that one of their clients is a supporter of a guy who has some pretty extreme prejudices against Latinos?  Did they know his political leanings two years ago?  Or do they prioritize making the money first and foremost?

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