The Museum of Marketing Madness (beta)

Tyvek Clean Suit Photo Shoot Day! Who Wants To Wear the Hoodie!?!

2010-08-07T04:01:51Z

Bearded guy gets the hoodie...and the clipboard! Lucky...Nyah nyah!

And what's with the nun on the right representin for Our Lady of Chemical Dispersants?

Relaxing for a coffee break? How about listening to a sales pitch?!

2010-08-02T02:29:00Z

In the ever-extending, never-ending, paper-the-world-in-marketing approach, you can find messages even on the sleeve of a "java jacket." From the people of Tide, an ancient brand that is now so old it's just so damn cool, comes this cute, funky, ultra-hip-cool-bleeding edge promo for their "stainbrain" site.

Okay, nice graphics and all, but, guys...what's w/the extra letters? Isn't it enough that you have a website called "stainbrain" and a whole campaign....what the hell is a Kah-Cho-Af-Kah-Eye-E-See? Leave me alone already!

Why is health care so expensive? Octopuses eating keyboards and monitors, of course!

2010-07-28T13:50:52Z

Granted, obscure niches of business-to-business advertising may not have the most sophisticated campaigns and marketing. But the message here is clear ... never do your clinical trials in the ocean or the octopus will get you!!

If you sucked at English, you have a career in copywriting!

2010-07-28T03:00:52Z

So, the logic here is:

If I had a DUI, I'd pay less for insurance. GIMME A BOTTLE & GIMME THE KEYS!!!

Aside from the worst grammatical copywriting this side of Japan, let's also note this is on an t-shirt colored Gitmo Camp X-ray Orange for no apparent reason...oh and it's a t-shirt that has a dropdown menu in the middle of it.

Look how tiny my stumpy legs are!!

2010-07-16T03:10:04Z

Why are these high angle shots so cool? Because it makes even people with club feet, or whatever sort of pod his woman is standing on, look totally hip. She's so damn cool, it makes me weak in the stump.

Our Mission? Remind you you're empty and you need to be whole.

2010-07-04T18:59:07Z

From ABC Carpet & Home, NYC online and instore:
To wit:
"ABC Home's mission is to serve by manifesting a retail paradigm shift in which we compose a revolutionary platform for offering cause related product through beauty, experience and magic, in order to guide you to creatively express your individuality, values and actualize your home as a sacred space."

WHAT?! Let us deconstruct.

"Our mission..." = Our excuse for making money...

"...is to serve by manifesting a retail paradigm shift in which we compose a revolutionary platform..." = ...is a store...

"...cause-related product..." = ...that sells junk...

"through beauty, experience and magic In order to guide you to" = ...that we make you want...

"...to creatively express your individuality, values and actualize your home as a sacred place..." = ...because your life is empty and you need things to make you feel whole.

Translated:
Our excuse for making money is a store that sells junk that we make you want because your life is empty and you need things to make you feel whole.

Gentlemen, you are drunk

2010-06-25T23:35:18Z

This comes to us from a gigantic sign in Grand Central, hence the odd reflected lights in the image. Now I know they're serious, because they're using the term, "Gentlemen." But, while they're being serious, they're also being another word that ends with "-ous." Ridiculous.

What exactly does that mean? "Gentlemen, this is vodka." What is this? Sitting with glasses in your hands? Not shaving? Dressing semi-casual? White and black men with glasses, talking about shaving heads, dressing casual with palm trees in the background??

Gentlemen, this is modeling. This is fake.

Brand Your 'Rags-in-a-Box' All You Want! We Got Boxes of 'Em!

2010-06-13T03:37:39Z

I'm thinking the generic Box of Rags people consider this a major coup. Scott (R) with all the marketing might get bumped down the page, their "Rags in a Box" product overshadowed by the sheer mass of Boxes of Rags.

I can just hear the Box of Rags sales guy exclaiming to his boss:
"Fred, are ya sitting down?? Wait'll you get this! I got the catalog to give us top third, all rags, above, are ya ready...SCOTT's RAGS-IN-A-BOX!!!"

Must've been a big day.

Advice: Please use humor carefully

2010-05-03T04:26:45Z

Sorry for the optical illusion of a picture within a picture within a website. This is a photo of an actual sign on the Metro-North train platform...and the photo in the sign is supposed to be a sign on the platform. Except, the idea here is that the restaurants are this way and the hospital is that way.

Why is this marketing madness? Let's just say hospitals, where people go when they are sick or dying, shouldn't be making jokes in general, or word play in their advertising.

We're taking care of you. In fact, THIS guy is taking care of you. Really!

2010-04-25T23:49:18Z

From our friends at HP, came this status page for an order I had placed. An order placed to get a refurbished printer at a discount because my other refurbished printer broke out of warranty. (That other printer was replacing the first one which broke out of warranty...and so on.) But who's bitching?? There is one simple message on this page: my order is "on order."

AND as an added bonus, here's a picture of a guy smiling.

Why do we need a picture of this guy? Who is he? He's got a little golf shirt on, seems to be in front of, I'm imagining some place like Home Depot or a big warehouse. He's not doing anything, of course. He had to stop in his busy day so some photographer could take pictures of him. Okay, now go back to shipping orders out and stop smiling.

I wonder if my password is up here???

2010-03-26T19:27:00Z

This lady forgot her password. She thinks it might be up here...inside the wide-angle lens of this camera that's hanging high above her head.

Hey, Wanna Be My Beauty Partner

2010-02-11T05:25:23Z

So, a looong time ago, there were but a few official sponsors of just a few events: the Olympics and the Super Bowl. Now we've got the official sponsor of beauty for Valentine's Day. Ir's bad enough that they've titled a movie after a holiday and then made it seem like they own the day. Then they actually took beauty, something were the original official sponsors back in 400 BC, and co-opted that too.

Next up, IMAX 3D, the Official Sponsor of Reality.

Adult Pretzels

2010-02-08T04:43:19Z

There really is nothing "adult" about these pretzels. In fact, I'm feeling mighty immature making fun of this. But I mean, c'mon! Nutzels and Rods??? Remind me to use this one when I present The Museum of Marketing Madness to high school boys.

You need a job? Or a Nose Job?

2010-02-04T00:57:56Z

In this exchange on Gmail with someone about work and using the words employment, the Highly Intelligent Google Email Scanners figured we might just be interested in a rhinoplasty or picking locks.

So the logic goes: If you're looking for a job, you might need some plastic surgery so you look better. And, if you're not making any money unemployed, you might want to know how to pick locks and steal money.

Makes perfect sense!

I Hope The Knuckle Headquarters Are Nicer Than This

2010-02-01T17:07:11Z

Nine assorted exhaust elbows on a rack does not deserve the moniker "headquarters."

Frankly, I don't know what an Elbow Headquarters would look like, but it's not this.