Tag: branding

How did the Ford Bronco become such the white peoples’ car?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the last few days, I had a pretty white span of existence.  Sure, this doesn’t help detract from the narrative that I’m a Americanized banana of a twinkie kind of Asian person, but as the circumstances have it, my family and I spent a few days on the road, stopping in Savannah and for the first time in my life, visiting Hilton Head Island, which is about one of the whitest places in the country.

Seriously, thinking back to the time spent in HHI, I genuinely can’t recall seeing more than one other person of color, and that person was also Asian which is to say that I don’t remember seeing a single black person while out there.

We stayed at a bougie resort for a few days, and lounged in the pool, went to the beach and even went to the Salty Dog Café, which I’m only aware of its existence because of an old neighbor of mine growing up always seemed to have a lot of Salty Dog Café apparel.  For the record, the dining experience was pleasant on the water of a relaxed beach community, but the food and the prices were not quite as satisfactory and I could be content with the rest of my life if I never experienced them again.

But overall, it was a pleasant trip spent with my family and I got to watch my children have a lot of fun in the pool, in our suite, on the beach and chowing down on all sorts of junk food we typically don’t always make available to them at home, and in spite of the shade I spout about HHI being a really white place, it’s also a really nice place, and I’d definitely be open to going there again in the future, and hopefully for longer.

However, to get to the point of this post, as the subject goes, I’m very curious to how the new Ford Bronco seems to have become the official car of white people across the country now.  When Ford announced that they were reviving the name and creating a new vehicle to resurrect the car, I couldn’t possibly have been more indifferent.  In fact, I was more perplexed and wincing over such news, because to me, the Ford Bronco has forever been tainted and etched with death and scandal since OJ Simpson led the LAPD on the most televised chase in history after he “didn’t” murder his wife.

Apparently such reaction and recollection didn’t resonate with the white people of America, because since they started rolling off the line, Ford Broncos have been snapped up and are being driven like crazy by white people all over the place.  Seriously, I haven’t seen a single Bronco driver on the road that isn’t white, and they’re often times being driven with the arrogant mentality of “I have one and you don’t,” because of the sheer demand for these murderer cars.

And I can’t help but be curious to why the Ford Bronco has caught on with white people with such enthusiasm, when I can’t shake the association of the car’s reputation of being what a tried-but-not-found-guilty murderer drove notoriously.  And then be further curious to what kind of message it sends that not only is the Ford Bronco more popular than it’s ever been in history, it’s apparently solely within the white community itself.

All shade aside, it really is fascinating that it’s so rabidly popular.  Aside from the whole, being OJ Simpson’s car, the Bronco is still a Ford product, and I will probably never not think of all Ford products being cheap, plastic turds with questionable build quality and reliability.  Even when I was on the market for a new car a while back, and told myself to wipe the slate clean with all makes and models, Ford was the first maker to get slapped back onto the blacklist after test-driving the option I had earmarked as a potential car, because it felt cheap, performed like shit, and was blown out of the water by every other option.

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Of course the Braves had to sell their jerseys too

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When it comes to clowning on the stupid shit that happens in professional sports, nobody is exempt, especially the teams that I say that I am a fan of.  After all, nobody hates X more than fans of X, so when the Mets were getting dunked on for their ludicrously large sponsorship patches on their jerseys, it wasn’t because they were the Mets, I would’ve done the same to absolutely anybody.

Which brings us to the Braves, who have also jumped aboard the sponsorship patch train, because they clearly need the money; $588 million in revenue in 2022 barely covered the spike in the cost of eggs that occurred.  And much like the Mets who sold their jersey sleeves to a local entity, the Braves sold their sleeves to an Atlanta company, Quikrete, which is among the leaders of the entire concrete industry in the western hemisphere.

But not only did they sell their sleeves to Quikrete, they also did exactly what the Mets did, at first: not really consider just how ridiculously large the sponsorship patch would actually be on their sleeves.  I mean seriously, the patch is maybe a 25% size increase from being the primary logo on the entire fucking jersey, and the Braves would become the first franchise in baseball to go the route of futbol, and have the chief sponsor be the biggest focal point of the jersey, even over the team’s name or city.

I don’t know how many people reading this (zero) have any understanding of embroidery or any experience with it, but it’s tremendously difficult to engrain any sort of details in embroidery.  That being said, Quikrete’s likely insistence that their logo look like it was on one of their signature yellow bags of concrete probably explains why it’s so fucking huge; in order for the tiny little wrinkles to show on the corners of the bag that help make it look like a bag of concrete are the reason why the whole thing has to be the size of an actual bag of concrete, making their logo shout louder than a MARTA rider hoping to avoid the post-Taylor Swift concert rush.

Either way, my theories about how the patches might affect player performance for the Mets now also apply to the Braves.  And considering the Mets’ performance was pretty pitiful, and the fact that they relented and actually redesigned their sponsor logo, let’s hope the Braves wizen up a little bit sooner than the Mets did before their nice little cushion they’ve build in the National League disintegrates.

Speaking of which, among the best slams on the internet to emerge from the mass-dunking on the Braves for selling out, was this particular gem that I chuckled heartily at:

Right to the jugular.  Good job Barves, for never straying too far from the need to be greedy.

Welp, that didn’t last long

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Color me a little surprised: after tremendous amounts of criticism and ridicule, the New York Mets revise the sponsorship patch on their jerseys for New York Presbyterian hospital

I’m surprised because in most cases, companies have a tendency to dig their heels in and quadruple down on their decisions, because nobody much less a gazillion dollar sport franchise ever likes admitting they were wrong.  But let’s be real here, it’s probably not (just) the criticism, clowning and ridicule they’ve been getting since debuting the former, arm-sized patch.

As I stated in my own stab at poking fun at the Mets for this, the patch was so big, it probably had the potential to affect player performance, and it probably was.  Baseball players are so neurotic and sensitive to the littlest stimuli, that a big fat patch on their arms probably made them feel a little off, and let the numbers speak for themselves:

  • The Mets as a team’s batting average is .238, which is 18th in MLB
  • Their pitching as a team has a fWAR of 0.4, which is 28th in MLB – out of 30

Keep in mind that the Mets also have a payroll of $364 million dollars which is the highest single season payroll in the history of Major League Baseball, so the expectation is that they should be the absolute best in every category in the game for as much money as they’ve invested in free agent star players.

But if you don’t think that the previous patch might not have had something to do with it, the Mets probably wouldn’t have pulled the trigger so quickly on revising this, if they didn’t believe that there was the remote possibility that it might have been affecting performance.

Either way, a good old-fashioned LOL Mets for doing the kind of silly bullshit that only the Mets seem capable of doing.  No matter how much money they dump into getting top tier pitchers and hitters, they just can’t fight the ownage that often times comes from simply being the Mets.

I don’t think many people realize the ownage here

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Obviously after winning a second national championship, there’s been a lot of rhetoric thrown around about the legend of Stetson Bennett the Fourth, about how he’s basically bigger than god in the state, he’ll never have to pay for a meal or a drink in Georgia for the rest of his life, etc, etc.

And honestly, good on his part, because after living here for 20 years now, I never thought I’d see the day when Georgia would actually reach the top of the mountain much less win two in a row, after the years on top of years I’ve passively witnessed the Dawgs come close but choke, mostly to Alabama.  As a Georgia resident, I am happy to see the hometown team reach the pinnacle of college football not just once, but twice in a row is pretty sweet.

I recently saw this ad come across my theFacebook feed, and was pretty surprised to see the God of Athens going so all-in as the poster boy for Raising Cane’s chicken.  To my understanding, Cane’s has a pretty big, almost cult following in the markets they exist in, but down in Georgia, is Zaxby’s country, their carbon copy franchise.  No seriously, their menus are nearly identical, and I remember the first time I ever came across a Cane’s, it was in Las Vegas, and their menu looked surreptitiously familiar, and my close friend I was with, when ordering her usual Zaxby’s equivalent, I implored her to get the “Cane’s Sauce” and sure as shit, it was the same thing as Zaxby’s Zax Sauce.

I have no qualms with Cane’s, but as someone who discovered Zaxby’s first, between my friends and I, I usually just refer to Cane’s as “Zaxby’s Red” for obvious branding reasons.

The thing is, Zaxby’s is not only based out of Georgia, their headquarters is in Athens, right near the University of Georgia.  I actually interviewed with their corporate offices, but the flaky response to whether or not I’d need to make periodic visits to the office in Athens, which is nearly 90 minutes away from me made me not pursue it, but the point is the fact that Zaxby’s allowed Raising Cane’s to somehow swoop beneath them and sign the kid in their very own backyard, and make Stetson Bennett their poster child is a pretty devastating blow.

Then again, Cane’s apparently has that killer instinct about their company, because while I was interviewing with Zaxby’s, it was brought to my attention that there’s actually one solitary Raising Cane’s location in Georgia; and it happens to be in Athens.  Very cut-throat and guerilla of them to do such, but it was clearly enough for a guy like Stetson Bennett to probably have tried them at one point and have enough of a positive association to the brand to when they came knocking with some NIL money, he signed on.

Although I said I have no beef with Cane’s, I’m still a Zaxby’s first person, because they’re here and available.  When I travel to places that have Cane’s, I enjoy them all the same.  But I have to give some respect to Cane’s for landing such a critical hit to a chief competitor, because as I said, I don’t think a lot of people are going to understand or realize just how much of a big deal it is that Cane’s got a hold of Stetson Bennett and not Zaxby’s.

David Chang has apparently gone full Gusteau

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the last week or so, I’ve been getting inundated with ads for David Chang’s (endorsed) air-dried noodles, which effectively has taken David Chang from being a well-known restauranteur and into the arena of an actual home cooking brand. 

I have this love-hate opinion of David Chang, because when I first heard of him, I thought he was this weeb that sold out his Korean heritage by opening a restaurant called Momofuku.  But then I learned that not only did he grow up in the same area I did in Virginia, one of my cousins has classes with him in high school, adding to the parallels I felt I had with him in this self-loathing manner.  But then I really did enjoy his first Netflix series, Ugly Delicious, because it was a well-produced series that had a lot of heart and soul in it.  But then anything he did afterward turned into this cringey star-fucking humblebrag, because of his increasing celebrity, so I’m mostly at this 60/40 scale of thinking he’s uncool, because anonymous people on the internet’s opinions totally matter.

Never mind that the product is about the whitest alternative to instant ramen there possibly could be, and their marketing pitch strategy that seems to think people are choosing to eat these 17¢ pucks of freeze dried noodles in pure salt water because they have a financial choice, and that “at ~$4 a meal” buying Momofuckyou air-dried noodles are a superior alternative.  Or that we’re supposed to believe that Chang himself was actually involved in “ten years of flavor research” when the guy is a few years older than I am, which would imply that he actually had any time at all in his early 30s to give a fuck about how to make a more white people friendly version of instant ramen.

It’s that by entering the world of producing DIY home cooking products, David Chang has basically turned into Gusteau from Ratatouille, spring-boarding his restaurant brand and celebrity status into a cheesy food brand.  Sure, it will in all likelihood make him richer beyond my capable dreams, but on the less-significant and internet coolness side of things, make him kind of a lame sell-out. 

Obviously I’m of the belief that such is always the goal of those who achieve fame, because securing the financial freedom for your family and possibly the generation(s) beyond you is always more important than what strangers think of you.  But I really wanted to make the comparison of David Chang to Gusteau, because it’s what I think he’s on the cusp of doing. 

Sure, Gusteau is dead [spoiler-alert] and it’s his crooked sous chef selling him out, but if Chang decides to go beyond noodles, and starts trying to sell DIY Indian food or soul food or Caribbean food, then he’s basically a real-life Korean Gusteau, worthy of having a series of tasteless cardboard cutouts of him wearing stereotypical garb of various nationalities.

Either way, I’m sure the internet and their endless parade of algorithms will know that I’ve got any opinion of David Chang at all, and when he inevitably releases Momofuckyou’s DIY chicken tikka masala, I’ll be ready and waiting to photoshop his head on Dhalsim’s body for an I-told-you-motherfuckers-so brog post.

Any team that wants to move a metric ton of merch needs to sign Steeve Ho You Fat

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Today o’clock I learned that there is actually a guy on the planet Earth named “Steeve Ho You Fat.”  Normally, I’d criticize the fact that there appeared to be an extra E in “Steve,” but when your family name is somehow, “Ho You Fat,” his first name could’ve been spelled “Steeeeeevuh” and nobody would probably have noticed.

Like, I have no earthly idea how this is even possible.  The first line of defense is that “he’s French,” but obviously a name like Ho You Fat even raises eyebrows in the land of the frogs.  Digging a little deeper, it should seem obvious that French colonization probably had something to do with it, but from what I can glaze over, he’s of mixed descent and somehow has the name Ho You Fat as a family name.

Either way, the fact that he’s a 14-year veteran playing in the NBA G-League, it doesn’t seem likely that he’s ever going to get the call up to the big leagues any time soon. But honestly the fact that this guy’s name is a literal golden ticket to move a metric fuckton of merch in jerseys and shirseys should get this guy onto a roster for any team that wants to bank on his incredibly profitable name.

Seriously, he could easily be the 13th man on any NBA roster, the guy that’s always listed as being on injured reserve, or better yet, be the mascot player that only gets onto the court when the team is either up by 20 or down by 20 in the fourth quarter.  No matter if they’re at home or on the road, the crowd would undoubtedly erupt at the sight of Ho You Fat taking the court, and people in the crowd left and right would be whipping out their phones to check on the legitimacy of his name, and if they haven’t already, they’re purchasing merch with his name on it, or running to the clubhouse store and grabbing Ho You Fat gear off the shelves.

Considering most teams’ seasons are decidedly over by December, there’s absolutely no harm for any of these teams to take a flyer on Ho You Fat and just make a mission of making as much profit through merchandise sales as possible.  If you can’t win on the court, might as well try to win in the bank instead.

Anyone else feel this way too?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I was inside a Target recently, mostly to admire #2’s prevalent presence in their baby section, and over the PA system, among the music that usually is tantamount to white noise, I was able to pick out the lyrics to Ricky Martin’s She Bangs.

The strangest thing to me, was the fact that it was actually Ricky Martin’s version of the song, and just how foreign and alien it sounded, hearing it for the first time in like, maybe 18 years.

Because in my head, when I think of She Bangs, the only version of the song I ever hear in my head is William Hung’s terrible rendition that he tried to audition on American Idol with.  In fact, while at Target, I was kind of awestruck at the simple fact that the lyrics actually continued past “looks like a flower but stings like a bee” because I practically expected there to be an interruption by Simon, Randy and Paula, except there wasn’t one, but instead a whole lot of unfamiliar lyrics.

It’s no secret that FOX and the internet gobbled all of William Hung up for making an ass out of himself on one of television’s most viewed programs, but in hindsight, Hung took it like a champion, and parlayed his abysmal appearance on Idol into all sorts of appearances and gigs afterward.  Given the crash and burn nature of so many Idol alum, I think it’s safe to say that in spite of everything, Hung still came out smelling a lot better than many who were probably a little bit more successful in the show than he was.

Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, She Bangs belongs to William Hung.  Anyone else feel this way too?