Tag: advertisements

Disney gets goofy over selling junk to kids

It seems like the whole nation is now at war against junk food. Not us, of course. Sedentary people are sedentary readers.

First, New York mayor and pint-sized terror, Michael Bloomberg, proposed a ban on all sugary drinks served in 16-ounce or larger cups in the city’s restaurants. Now, Walt Disney Co plans to cut back on the number of junk food advertisements aired during children’s programming, including their Disney channels, ABC, ABC Family and ESPN Pop Warner. (Ask your cable provider.)

Disney must have realized that children built like John Candy are less likely to live long enough to buy Oliver & Company when it’s finally re-released from “the vault” in 10 years.

Your girlfriend smells awesome, bro

Axe Body Spray, which cornered the market on making young men smell like Italians, announced a new spray for women: Anarchy. The advertisement (viewable in the link) maintains Axe’s standard of sensitivity towards women by not explicitly stating that it’s for the vaginal regions.

Personally, we hope to see mirrors of their original ads in which a young woman applies Axe (not necessarily into her baby hole) and is chased down and tackled by a group of young, fratish men. Maybe they’ll do that for their next line of women’s spray, Axe: The Accused.

Take it from Snee: Decadence is the problem

I pass at least three of these a day in my Toyota Tacoma.

You ever notice how marketers get hooked on words or spellings? Like how everything got a “2000” after it in the ’90s to make it sound futuristic? Or anything beginning with “ex” was spelled with an “X” to remind you of snowboarders skydiving into a live volcano?

If Lever 2000, which is just f##king soap, and the X-wife that took one of your testicles in your divorce taught you anything, it’s that Madison Avenue is lined with useless professionals. By “useless professional,” I mean someone who wears a tie to an office where they produce nothing but email and post-lunch dumps.

This group, more than any, causes me to look at the English language and evaluate which words have been abused and twisted to the point that they no longer have meaning. I’ve termed this, “cleaning out the language gutters,” in the same spirit that Brazilians used to burn street orphans to “end poverty.”

(I may not actually solve problems with the English language, but at least I won’t have to look at the word anymore and think, “Why? Why didn’t I do something?!”)

This week, I’m looking at the latest word to have been chewed up by some undergrad yuppie and spit into our living rooms: decadence. Continue reading Take it from Snee: Decadence is the problem