Follies of the Mad Men #98

Nooka race from ilovedust on Vimeo.

I guess you have to be cool and hip enough to know what this product is before viewing the ad, because you certainly do not learn during the commercial.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Apr 16, 2010 - Comments (5)
Category: Ambiguity, Uncertainty and Deliberate Obscurity, Business, Advertising, Products

Follies of the Mad Men #97

Are UK pitchmen as idiotic and annoying as USA ones? Decide for yourself.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Apr 13, 2010 - Comments (2)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Domestic, Europe

Follies of the Mad Men #96

Talking into the toilet? Huh?

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Posted By: Paul - Fri Apr 09, 2010 - Comments (2)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Public Indecency

Follies of the Mad Men #95

I'm not certain that the ability to understand the language here would improve this weird ad.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Apr 07, 2010 - Comments (6)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Food

Follies of the Mad Men #94

Are you as grossed out as I am by the thought of rivers of cow's milk running through the countryside? What if you fell into one?!? Yuck! And what's at the source of these streams? A giant cow being perpetually milked? Double yuck!

Posted By: Paul - Tue Mar 30, 2010 - Comments (3)
Category: Animals, Farming, Business, Advertising, Products, Fantasy, Body Fluids

Follies of the Mad Men #93

Okay, so your establishment is NOT the Bates Motel. But do you even want to remind your customers of the horrible things that can happen in anonymous hotel rooms?

Posted By: Paul - Sun Mar 28, 2010 - Comments (2)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Death, Hotels, Europe

Follies of the Mad Men #92

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Posted By: Paul - Tue Mar 16, 2010 - Comments (4)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Sexuality, Birth Control , Public Indecency, Asia

Follies of the Mad Men #91

[From Life magazine for September 15, 1941. Two scans, click either to enlarge.]

Choking your wife equals nicer shirts in the future.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Mar 04, 2010 - Comments (6)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Fashion, Violence, Husbands, Wives, 1940s

Weird Shorts - Boys and Girls

It’s an old excuse, whenever a man is caught eyeing-up another woman by his partner we’ll often claim that it’s not our fault, it’s just the way we’re wired. Well not according to neuroscientists at Gwinnett College in Georgia. Researchers there monitored the brain activity of 14 men while showing them pictures of women’s behinds taken before and after surgery designed to give them Beyonce like curves. The scans showed ‘reward areas’ of the men’s brains more commonly associated with drugs or alcohol lit up more in response to the redesigned rumps. In other words, we do it because we like it (Orange).

But if what most attracts men is a great set of lady bumps, what would top women’s list of desirable traits in their perfect man? That’s what online matchmakers UKDating wanted to know, so they analysed the responses of 83,000 lovelorn women to find the top ten most wanted male characteristics. And number one was… a salary over £50k ($75k). Bizarrely, being good looking came in at number 9, just above being 5’11” tall and five places below owning an Audi TT. But do girls really only like cars and money, or does this finding perhaps explain why these particular girls had to resort to a dating service in the first place (News://Lite)?

The economics of relationships also features in the new book from Karyn Langhorne Folan. In Don’t Bring Home A White Boy, Folan describes today’s black women as being stuck in “market failure”, with college educated black women outnumbering their male counterparts by 3 to 1. This severely restricts the women’s options unless they look outside their own race. “In this case, we are the commodity and the new market is men of other races,” states Foley, who is herself a Harvard-educated lawyer, “it’s Econ 101 for the single, educated black woman” (STL Today).

Mind you, women aren’t always a commodity, sometimes they’re the consumer. At least that’s what Cuban cigar maker Habanos is hoping. In an effort to boost sales in a market hit hard by anti-smoking legislation the world-over, Habanos have produced what they’re billing as the first Cuban cigar specifically for female smokers. Their new Julieta brand is smaller and milder in hopes of being more appealing to women, but still manages to keep that phallic edge to its image (Sky News).



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Posted By: Dumbfounded - Mon Mar 01, 2010 - Comments (5)
Category: Business, Education, Ethnic Groupings, Inebriation and Intoxicants, Sexuality, Stupid Criminals, Goofs and Screw-ups

Follies of the Mad Men #90

Is it smart to emphasize to parents, the toy-buyers, how goddamn noisy your products are?

Posted By: Paul - Sat Feb 27, 2010 - Comments (3)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Toys, 1960s