Sure it looks cute, the little snowman with the sign and all that. 

holidays, visual merchandising, window displays
Posted by lee sachs at 1:29 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

As noted before, the holidays are a time for joy, giving and desperate, hollow advertising.  Which brings us to the A&P store plastered with signs about a "Holisaleabration."  Doesn't that word sound a little like "halitosis."





Please note the similarities to another A&P word-jumble campaign I mentioned from September of 2009:
Redtacular Spectacular Count Dracula

holidays, signs, supermarkets
Posted by lee sachs at 3:36 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Another in my series of public error messages.  Here in the window of a seasonally decorated gourmet shop one monitor seems to be behaving well, while another one went (sorry for the pun) 'out to lunch' in a blue screen of death.  I wonder if there was a bug in the food it was displaying.  (pun intended)

error messages, supermarkets
Posted by lee sachs at 12:01 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

This comes to us from our friends at the USPS during that most wonderful time of year when marketing becomes even more idiotic than any other time: THE HOLIDAYS!

holidays, visual merchandising
Posted by lee sachs at 8:58 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

As noted before, marketing around the holidays is the perfect time to mangle a metaphor and create cockamamie copy.  Take "Jingle Bells."  Let's trace the metaphor back to its source:

• Christmas holiday represents birth of Christ, origins of Christianity
• Holiday traditions include gift-giving, parties and songs
• One of the popular songs, carols, includes "Jingle Bells"
• The noun "jingle" and the verb "to jingle" have become associated with the holidays

So the copywriter's dialogue might have gone a little like this:

"Jingle....what else can we do with Jingle?  Jingle all the way, Jingle this.  Jingle that.  Hey!  What if the jingle was taken OUT of the holidays?!  What if someone could put the jingle BACK in the holidays?!?!  But who took the jingle!?!  I don't know!  But we can say, we put it back!  YEAH!!!" 

headlines, holidays, supermarkets, visual merchandising
Posted by lee sachs at 7:58 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The fact that they slotted this little callout in the middle of the display really emphasizes how feeble the whole give-a-card sentiment is.  Almost calls attention to the fact that it's the cheapest little stupid ass thing you can do because you have no life and no friends. 

I mean, it doesn't say that.  But the thought is there. 

bad graphics, copy for copy's sake, signs, supermarkets
Posted by lee sachs at 11:34 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)