The Museum Of Marketing Madness
Curating, skewering and roasting the worst of advertising to comic perfection
So the Big Box Bed Bath & Beyond isn’t really a store after Covid because retail is dead and we’re all stuck at home. How will they spin that and make us feel better?
Easy!
The Big Box Stores are now warehouses for our stuff. Happier?
…but if it shuts them up while we’re shopping, who cares?
Maybe they were saving money on modeling fees and just went to the local morgue?
For those following along, this is Part 2. For Part 1, go here
This was actual dialogue recorded from the photoshoot for the 2011 Spring/Summer Uline catalogue photoshoot:
Fred: “Find somethin’ heavy to put in front of the wood crates. This is goin’ on the cover.”
Phil: “Huh? Ahh…throw a cinder block in there!”
Fred: “Cinder block!? Find something nice!”
Phil: “Nice?! Who cares!! Just put anything there!”
Fred: “Hey what about this beaver!!”
Phil: “BEAVER?!”
Fred: “You said, ‘Anything!!'”
Wordplay is not a game and should only be done by professionals. This contractor may know his basements but hasn’t learned:
NOTHING is ‘basementy’ so all things canNOT be basementy.
And, btw, dude. The umbrella. Not basementy in the least. Srsly?!
Everybody knows sales drop off the closer you get to the freight elevator.
The Manager had to find a place to shove the Deer Park water bottles they were pushing. Knowing this was not a good spot he asked one of the stock boys to make a simple sign, nothing fancy. Good signage is the mark of smart marketing.
And there it is.
And the stuff just flew off the shelves. Flew.
Well I talked to Nature and she said:
“I would never drink soda! I can drink ANY mineral water I want since I created them all! At the end of a long day, however, I do love a fine glass of Chevalier-Montrachet La Cabotte Chardonnay.
“Sierra Mist?? I friggin’ created the real mist IN the Sierras!! There’s no sugar in that! In fact, smartypants, the Sierras are not known for mist as the air rarely gets oversaturated with moisture. Just sayin'”
The reason you can’t see below his shoulders is because this is a mug shot and he’s holding up his booking ID.
The thing that first attracted me to this Marketing Madness was the “Baker’s Dozen” highlighted in red below. So I decided to see if I could come up with 13 (baker’s dozen, get it?) reasons why this website is awful.
1. Notice the big white space on the side of the page? That’s because whoever built this page, never thought there might be a screen that’s larger than a piece of 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper!
2. BTW, on a phone it’s even crappier. Responsive much?
3. Nice try adding some, oh let’s call it ‘graphics’ up there. Ya have your basic business-suit, white lady arms folded at a resolution of twenty-crappy by forty-crapola pixels.
4. While we’re trashing that image selection, let’s not forget the diluted gang of pseudo business people drained of all color but blue.
5. Which brings us to the business itself: background checks. The subtext here is “I’m smiling and I have my arms folder because they’re doing a background check behind me and I have no idea who these blue people are and I am SURE I’m gonna pass because I’m a confident business woman with my arms folded smiling (at a very low resolution)”
6. Logo? Another fail. 3 curved horn sorta triangle shapes that say, “We’re a triangle. We think. We are Three. We represent, uh, three things.”
7. While we’re on that Three Thing, what’s under the logo. Of course, the Three Things. But 2 are things and the other is a preposition or some temporal factor. Which one of these is not like the other? “Productivity confidence now” does not a sentence make.
This calls for a modern copywriting trope: One. Word. Sentence.
“Productivity.” Boom … ya got a sentence.
“Confidence.” Another sentence!
“Now.” Three.
8. Let’s not forget Subheads … and what an assortment! We have one that is 19px and the lead-in to a paragraph with real punctuation. Then 4 others go to 21px size but, let’s not be TOO consistent. One Doesn’t Have Initial Caps! One has italics!
9. Blue. Too much blue. Boring, plain, just-another-corporate-site blue. Blew it.
10. All fields on the form are required but then do you need to have an asterisk for all fields…which are required anyway?
11. The Baker’s Dozen! What the MF is this?? A Baker’s Dozen of what? If you’re #1 do I need to know there’s 12 others behind you? Why even make reference to some no-name organization that gives out prizes to 12 other companies?
12. 2009?! This Baker’s Dozen has been getting moldy for 12 years and you’re still telling us about it like it’s yesterday!?
13 And who is HRO? And why does it look like there’s an exclamation after their name?
Stick with the words copy peoples! I’m trying to resolve this equation and it’s just not coming out.
Do I add the Immune Health + Digestive Health + Gut Health and get Immune Digestive Gut over 3Health?
OR?
Add Peach Blended Yogurt + Immune Digestive Gut divided by 3Health or am I dividing the Immune Digestive Gut 3 Health INTO the Peach Blended Yogurt?
And isn’t Peach Blended Yogurt a set whose members are Immune Digestive Gut 3Health? I may be overthinking this one but clearly the copywriter was not thinking.