Badvertising

My dear homepeople of the internets, I welcome you to another post here at UOPTA. No, that doesn't stand for "Usually Only Pilots Teach Aviation," but if that's the case, I really think that they need to bump that up to 100% of the time. "Usually" simply can't cut it this time. Instead, UOPTA is where I write my thoughts and stories for my 8-10 loyal readers to hopefully enjoy. (If you can think of something that UOPTA can stand for, please email it to me at ptklein@gmail.com and make your presence felt in the first paragraph of an upcoming post.) As is often the case, I have some unrelated items to share with you all today.

It probably comes as a shock to absolutely no one that I'm critical of the way companies advertise their products. I've already discussed the extreme example at great length (Carl's Jr. garnering a Peter Klein boycott), but there are lesser, more general ones that bother me as well. I'm going to make up names for these categories. The first one I shall call...The Self-Disparaging Comparison. Allow me to explain the SDC with a crystal clear example:

Picture a commercial for Pine Sol or a similar product. At some point, it's likely that there will be a split screen showing one mop or sponge doing a mediocre job on the left while the product they're selling is doing a kick-ass job on the right. What's the problem with that? Well, often the product on the left is the old (or current) version of the same brand's product. "But look at how NEW Pine Sol with its extra added cleaning power takes care of the same mess!" I made up that specific example, but I'm not far off at all. Basically, when products show how much better they are than the same brand's recent product, they're essentially saying, "Yeah, that stuff that you spent your money on because we said it was the best and is now sitting in your cabinet...well, it didn't really do that great a job. This one is a lot better." But what if they told you that something killed 99.9% of germs before? Can they rightfully come out with a "better" product without claiming all 100%? My suggestion is to stick to belittling "the other guys" or similar products in the same category and to just let your old versions fade away gracefully.

I thought of another SDC during that last paragraph. "Now with 100% real meat!" To me, that only elicits one reply: "What the hell were you serving me before?" It's almost like a used car salesman saying, "This car over here is special - it's never been found with two dead hookers in it." Ok, maybe not quite like that, but who among us hasn't forced an analogy to dead hookers before?

The second advertising method that's currently bothering me is one I'll call the Arbitrary Size Boost. I've noticed the ASB many times in the past, but I saw it again this week and it spurred this entire post. My shaving cream is very pleased with itself. "35% More! (compared to our 7 oz. size)," it tells me. I see this all the time. "50% more!" it'll say on a bag of some snack food. You know what they don't tell us in those little blurbs? That it costs the same as the smaller size. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. Yes, the four-pack of shaving cream at Costco now has the larger can size in it, but am I paying more for it? If so, then why not make it 75% bigger and raise the price more? The thing is, they don't care to mention when the opposite happens, which does all the time (especially lately). Granola bar boxes that once came with 6 now have five. My bag of tortillas has 16 instead of the 20 to which I grew accustomed. Bottles that appear to be the same size now have indentations on the bottom to sneakily decrease the volume. You never see, "Now with 25% less volume (compared to our 12 oz. size)." I understand why they'd try to be sneaky about that (especially when prices remain the same often for the lesser amount), but I don't want to see those same companies tout their "bigger sizes" a year from now when they're actually the same size they had before getting sneaky. I'm watching you, retail products.

Ok, time to switch topics. In this here blog, when I say I don't like a phrase, it's usually because it either doesn't make sense or is just wildly inappropriate. Not today, my good men and women. Here's a phrase that I dislike for a whole 'nuther reason: "Adding to an already tough drive." If you hear that on the radio in your car, you'd better hope that it had nothing to do with your route. Unfortunately, everything seems to be an already tough drive - getting in a car at all is really beginning to suck in L.A. There's no rhyme or reason anymore, and I thrive off rhyme and reason. Driving to my grandparents' house last weekend, we were suddenly in bumper-to-bumper traffic. It was a Saturday in the early afternoon, but that didn't matter. There can be horrible traffic anywhere, on any day, and at any time in the greater Los Angeles area. (And in the worse Los Angeles area too I suppose.) As someone who already worries about leaving enough time to get somewhere, all this traffic does is make me anxious. There seem to be only two possible outcomes when I'm leaving to drive somewhere a moderate distance away. One: I don't hit traffic and get there way too early, usually leading to time alone in the car, writing emails on my Blackberry that I could've been writing on a real computer if I hadn't left so damn early. Two: I hit traffic and worry the whole time that I'm going to be late. It's worse if I'm going somewhere for the first time and have to find out where it really is, where to park, etc. Oy vey, this traffic thing isn't good for me at all.

And with that, let's slowly inch our way over to the Car Watch.

First off, my friend Dave very rarely sends me anything for the Car Watch section, but when he does, it's a doozy. Check out this picture he sent me of a car he saw when he went to an Angels game recently:

In case you can't read that, it says, "For Letters Call." Oh, they do lettering on things. How interesting. And since it's a toll-free number, I'm guessing that it's not just a guy in his garage doing it as a hobby. Why then, pray tell, would the driver spell his or her favorite team's name wrong right below that? That's comically awful. I wonder how many people have seen that car, thought about calling, and then purposely not given them the business because of that error. That's your livelihood, dude! Come on, put just a little pride in it. To me, this colossally negligent error in business advertising is tied for the worst I've seen. The other, sent a while back from loyal reader Sue, was a tutoring company that specializes in helping with "grammer." Those two errors so successfully strip the companies of credibility that I might not even point it out to them in person as punishment for their foolishness. People, please proofread. Please.

Next up, my homey Rockabye sent me this license plate that he saw: "(Heart) 2B DST." Now I ask you, friends, which makes more sense: "Love to be dust," or "Love to be Daylight Savings Time?" Neither, right? "Love tube dust?" I don't know what that could mean, but that's not stopping me from throwing it out there. Whatever it stands for, the driver clearing loves it.

And lastly, my dad sent me a very good plate that he spied. It read, "CLSY BRP." Can that be anything but "classy burp?" I guess the driver's initials could be BRP, but if that's the case, then s/he showed an amazing lack of foresight in selecting that plate. I can't help but wonder what would constitute a classy burp. Is it in a baritone with an appropriately genteel hand mannerism? Would it be reserved for after a particular food or drink, like caviar or port? I want to know this, yet I have a feeling that I'll be left in the dark. Any additional thoughts, my friends?

Ok, that's it for now. I'm tired and ready for the weekend. How about you guys? (This is the part where you're supposed to cheer.) I can't hear you! (Now you're supposed to cheer louder.) Whoa, I guess you're ready for it too! I'll be back here next Friday with more stuff, things, and items. In the meantime, I've got some happies to dish out. Happy birthday today to my good friend Jason. Also, congratulations to him and his new fiancee Wendy on getting engaged. We're very happy for them and can't wait to congratulate them in person sometime in the near future. Happy birthday to me tomorrow. Thank you, me. No problem. Happy half-birthday to my dad on Sunday, and happy 6th birthday to little Katy, daughter of Sacky Kevin and Sacky Christi. Isn't it weird that they have the same first name? Alrighty folks, have happy and healthy weekends and weeks. See you in July, foolios.