A Spoonful Of Dung Or Tumor—People Get Paid To Produce Ads Such As This

Above you see a magazine ad for Jello Mousse Temptations.

The ad says you should give in to the temptation of this mousse dessert.

You should give in even as obesity rates soar and we are in a recession caused in part by people spending beyond their resources.

That picture is nasty.

It looks like a spoonful of dung or tumor.

Somebody was paid plenty of money to come with that ad.

That person might be making more money than you are making.

Yet you do your job well and this person came up with that picture.

Nasty. Nasty. Nasty.

Alive With Pleasure!

Above is the old Alive With Pleasure ad for cigarettes.

There is really nothing I can add to that picture and those words.

Taschen is a book publisher with a large selection of books on advertising and the history of advertising.  It is well worth checking out the Taschen site.

Care Bears Cartoon Had Commerical Every Six Or Seven Minutes

 

This morning I watched the Care Bears cartoon on CBS. I watched it while in a very nice room at the Stephen F. Austin Hotel in Austin, Texas. 

There was a commercial every six or seven minutes during the Care Bears. Don’t we have any standards for the amount of advertising in kids programming?

I bet we don’t.

This morning, Funshine Bear was cleaning up pollution in a place called Rainshine Hollow. I think that’s what the place was called.

While Funshine worked at picking up trash and cleaning streams, the other Care Bears just kept playing their games. Only when they saw how discouraged Funshine had become from the enormity of his task did the other Care Bears assist him. 

I’m glad they came to his aid. Though I’m not certain how bears so practiced in helping others would have allowed Funshine to go without help at any point. I found that to be a hole in the story.   

The given reason for the pollution in Rainshine Hollow was a “storm.” Maybe a kind of Care Bear Katrina had occurred.

I did note that the Care Bears talked in complete sentences and did not talk down to the audience. Adults could learn something from the Care Bears in that respect. I always speak to children in an adult tone to convey that I don’t think they are dolts. 

The Care Bears logo is owned by the American Greetings Corporation. The folks at American Greetings should realize that any good messages the Care Bears have are drowned out when you have an advertisement every seven minutes.