Tag: branding

What exactly can possibly be illegal about eyelashes?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

No seriously, I’m genuinely curious to the marketing behind this cosmetic product.  “Illegal Length” mascara?  What could possibly be illegal about the length of one’s eyelashes?

Does lengthening eyelashes from 3/16th of an inch to a full 1/8th trigger some carnal rape mechanism in surrounding men, forcing them onto women, giving them a legal reason to sue and cash in?

Does lengthening eye lashes with this stuff make eyelashes long and spiny as a porcupine’s spines, and just as lethal?  Where women with this stuff applied can literally peck things to death with their illegally-long eyelashes?

Does putting this stuff on your eyelashes give your eyelashes the ability to light-write racist and anti-Semitic remarks in public places?

Because if neither of these are true, I can’t really fathom how anything could possibly make eyelashes illegal.  I get that there is a perceived arousing/sexy appeal to the naughty and forbidden, and “illegal” describes just that, but c’mon, this is for fucking eyelashes.  What’s illegal about eyelashes?  If this is the precedent being set by companies, and attempting to appeal to the lowest, horniest denominator, I may as well go put the patent on “Super Sexy Doritos,” “Illegal Water,” and “Forbidden Cereal.”

An example of effective packaging

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As amazing as the thought of rib chips would be, it’s hard to fathom how such would be executed.  But when Jen and I were at the store the other day, I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw this bag of Ruffles Smokehouse Style BBQ chips.

Pictured on the bag is but a half-rack of the most succulent, meaty, heavily seasoned looking ribs the world has ever seen.  Ruffles has clearly transcended the need to even bother putting potatoes or the actual product on their bags themselves, and instead just gone straight for the jugular by putting a picture of what the chips are supposed to taste like.  The name is kind of there as a formality more or less, but nowhere on the front of the bag is even written the words “potato” or “chips.”

Instead, it’s just the greatest looking ribs in the world screaming “FUCKING BUY ME AND EAT ME YOU GOD DAMN PUSSY.”

The fact that it’s in my snack cupboard says who won that conflict.

I think I miss The Nabisco Thing

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I can’t say I eat a whole lot of Kraft foods.  It’s hard to tell, because apparently Kraft ultimately owns a shit ton of other companies, that I was mostly unaware that were owned by Kraft.  That being said, I read this story recently about how Kraft is rebranding their snack division, and will be soon be called Mondalez International.

The flaw with the statement is that Kraft Foods used the term “snack division.”  Sure, you could technically snack on anything be it an Oscar Meyer hot dog, a glass of Tang, to Kraft cheese single.  But in terms of the traditional snacks of chips, fruit snacks, cookies and crackers, Kraft already has a name for their snack division – Nabisco.

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Seen in Atlanta: Pull my finger

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

There’s something to be said about the culture of tagging in the world, but sometimes it’s funny to just see something kind of out of left field to get the mind wondering.  Here in Atlanta, the popular tags are a head in a ski-mask, Pac-Man ghosts smiling broadly, the word “DOSE,” and a bunch of indecipherable marks that pockmark bridges, billboards, walls, and other public or private property that are illegally being desecrated.  That being said, I can give some genuine appreciation to PULL MY FINGER, because there’s really no explanation needed.  Most everyone knows what the joke is, and it’s kind of refreshing to see something that requires no explanation being used as vandalism over the esoteric, kind of bullshit tags that are scattered around the rest of the city.  I mean, I like the Pac-Man ghosts as much as the next nerd does, but I have no fucking idea what the point of it is.

At least with pull my finger, there’s a modicum of sense being made, since it relates to fecal matter, and so many here in this fair city are full of shit, so there’s a connection there.

You’ll never un-see it

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m one of those guys who will often use his own vernacular around people, with the expectations that they should understand it.  A part of me derives pleasure from the random reactions I get from people, after I have to explain my choice of words to them, and it’s even better when they begin to integrate it into their own vocabulary for future use.  Such is one of those instances.

  • Barry Bonds’ home run record will always have a butthole next to it.
  • That’s not the final price, see the butthole next to the MSRP?
  • No, you don’t use the X key for multiplication, you use the butthole key.

If you haven’t gotten it yet, buttholes are a euphemism for asterisks, since in a twisted kind of way, they kind of look like them.  Starfish, pinwheels, or whatever.  I call them buttholes.  Look no further than the crown jewel of guerrilla marketing at its best.

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The strongest brand in fiction

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Part of what I do for a living involves a lot of brand management. Ensuring the consistency of the brand’s usage, making sure all future projects and endeavors incorporate and also ensure the integrity of the identity, and so forth. Needless to say, I think I know a little something about branding.

So despite the fact that it’s a fictional universe, Capcom has gone through some pretty impressive lengths to ensure that the brand of the Umbrella Corporation is impressively strong. Dare I say it, but I’d venture a statement that Umbrella is the strongest brand in fiction.

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