Posts Tagged ‘advertisements’

This is a continuation of the post Crazy Classifieds, part 1 from earlier this week. I hope you enjoy these. I will repeat the same disclaimer....

WARNING: Don't read these unless you're in a place where you are free to laugh out loud at least several times.

Used Cars: Why go elsewhere to be cheated? Come here first.

And now, the Superstore – unequaled in size, unmatched in variety, unrivaled inconvenience.

For sale: a quilted high chair that can be made into a table, potty chair, rocking horse, refrigerator, spring coat, size 8 and fur collar.

Dinner Special – Turkey $2.35; Chicken or Beef $2.25; Children $2.00.

Creative daily specials, including select offerings of beef, foul, fresh vegetables, salads, quiche.

For sale. Three canaries of undermined sex.

Great Dames for sale.

Mt. Kilimanjaro, the breathtaking backdrop for the Serena Lodge. Swim in the lovely pool while you drink it all in.

Get rid of aunts: Zap does the job in 24 hours.

Wanted: Hair cutter. Excellent growth potential.

Wanted. Widower with school age children requires person to assume general housekeeping duties. Must be capable of contributing to growth of family.

Offer expires December 31 or while supplies last.

Christmas tag-sale. Handmade gifts for the hard-to-find person.

Semi-Annual after-Christmas Sale.

Wanted. Man to take care of cow that does not smoke or drink.

Our experienced Mom will care for your child. Fenced yard, meals, and smacks included.

Wanted: Preparer of food. Must be dependable, like the food business, and be willing to get hands dirty.

Mother's helper – peasant working conditions.

I really enjoy hearing from the commenters on my blog. If you don't get to the blog itself and read the comments, you're missing some of the best humor. Or worse yet, you could be depriving the other readers of the laugh they would get from your comment!

I'll be back at you this weekend with the second installment of Tom Swifties. Hope your week ends well.

quotation...

"Be what you want them to become, or you will become what they are." - Dr. Gordon Dickson

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Rob

"LITE" — the new way to spell "LIGHT" with 20% fewer letters!

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In a recent post called Extra! Extra! Read all about it! I talked about the decline in circulation and subsequent demise of some newspapers that have been around for years. One of the favorite sections of the paper that many people will miss is the classifieds. Though meant to be helpful, but they are often a great source of humor, intentionally or otherwise.

I have scans of quite a few funny classifieds as well as text of some reportedly real ads. Because of the sheer quantity, I'm breaking the post into two parts. Here are some particularly poorly-worded ads.

WARNING: Don't read these unless you're in a place where you are free to laugh out loud at least several times.

I'll start off with some help wanted ads.

Here are some items for sale.

Here are several (a little too?) personal ads.

Illiterate? Write today for help.

Auto Repair Service. Try us once, and you'll never go anywhere again.

Dog for sale. Eats anything and is fond of children.

Stock up and Save! Limit one per customer.

Man wanted to work in dynamite factory. Must be willing to travel.

Three-year-old teacher needed for preschool. Experience preferred.

WANTED: Girl to assist magician in cutting-off-head illusion. Blue Cross and salary.

We do not tear your clothing with machinery. We do it carefully by hand.

Mixing bowl set designed to please a cook with round bottom for efficient beating.

Tired of cleaning yourself? Let me do it!

Vacation special: Have your home exterminated.

Toaster: A gift that every member of the family appreciates. Automatically burns toast.

For rent: Six-room hated apartment.

We will oil your sewing machine and adjust tension in your home for $1.00.

Now is your chance to have your ears pierced and get an extra pair to take home, too.

Man, honest, will take anything.

Have several very old dresses from grandmother in beautiful condition.

For sale: Antique desk suitable for lady with thick legs and large drawers.

And who said spelling and word order don't matter?!

I have added part 2 to this post – http://blog.ivman.com/crazy-classifieds-part-2

Our campus son Tim, whom I mentioned in the post Rules of the Air, has written a book that will be off the presses this summer. I'd like to share the link to his website about this book Inherited Freedom. I was privileged to be one of his readers before the book went into production. It's a good tribute to both of his grandfathers, soldiers in the Greatest Generation. I've put a link to his site in the links on my sidebar.

I'll end this post with a picture I received today that was just screaming out to be shared. The subject line of the e-mail read:

It's official. There is a recession!

quotation...

"Much of the trouble we face is self-inflicted." - Dr. Drew Conley

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Rob

Editing is a rewording activity.

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If I had any doubts concerning the power of advertising, they all vanished this past week as a result of something I participated in on campus last Tuesday. At our university we have a special day once every four years called Gold Rush Daze. Classes are suspended and the students and faculty enjoy fun activities the whole day.

I helped serve "breakfast in bed" in one of the men's dorms that morning, but my main participation in the day's festivities was in the program called Faculty Body that the faculty put on in the evening. Several weeks prior to Gold Rush Daze, my office mate Phil and I worked up four "Bo-Jonic" commercials, knock-offs of some Sonic ads that appear on TV. We spent an afternoon with several people from BJ HomeSat taping the ads in the parking lot of an apartment complex.

In anticipation of the evening, not having seen the finished products, Phil and I were fearful that our ads would totally bomb, making us the laughing stock of the campus. However the ads went over far better than we ever imagined they would! Here's a shot of me eating a tater-tot I'd bummed off of Phil, not knowing he had licked it before handing it to me!

The folks at HomeSat did a fantastic job with the taping and editing, even adding the SLAP sound effect and the words in red. The ads looked so authentic! Here's a picture of the tail end of that ad.

Several people told us that, after seeing our Bo-Jonic ads, Sonic and tater-tots were on their minds so much that they went to the Sonic closest to the campus on their way home. However when they got there, they were turned away – the folks at Sonic were so overwhelmed with people coming from BJ that they couldn't take and fill any more orders. The next-closest Sonic to campus was a little less busy, but bustling with BJ people nonetheless.

Even though our commercial spots were not for Sonic, per se, the suggestion alone was sufficient to induce people to head over to Sonic anyway. A while back I did a blog post on effective advertising. Since then, I have come across some other shopping bags that are quite creative, some advertising products and some promoting social causes.

If I saw this bag, I know that I would instantly crave some Nutella.

Here's a great bag advertising a pain reliever called Panadol Extra.

Here's another bag advertising Panadol Extra, perhaps even more effectively.

These two bags definitely have a touch of class.

It appears that the side of the bag with the hands is mostly transparent, creating the illusion that a person is holding the book that's inside the bag.

This is a creative bag for a car dealer.

Here's a bag from a Belgian animal rights organization GAIA (Global Action in the Interest of Animals) protesting the cruelty of making and eating foie gras. The bag says, "Folter deze gans. En spaar de echte: eet geen Foie Gras." = "Torture this goose. And spare the real ones: don’t eat foie gras."

This bag promotes fitness in a unique way.

This bag seeks to motivate people to help those with autism.

The Red Cross is always eager to have people donate blood. I'm afraid it would take more than this bag to move me to give blood.

Although it's cute, if the bag below is advertising something, it's so cryptic that I can't figure it out. Can anyone help me on this? (added Friday morning, March 20, 2009 - Since posting this, I have learned from a commenter and by e-mail that the woman on the bag below is Yulia Tymoshenko, the Prime Minister of Ukraine. She's iconic in Europe for her braids.)

People have told Phil and me that they can't see us without thinking of Sonic or tater-tots, or they can't drive by Sonic without thinking of us – a testimonial to the effectiveness of branding in commercials. Do you think that advertising is effective on you or your family? Could you give us an example?

quotation...

"The worst that this world can dish out to you is just an opportunity to serve God in a way you hadn't even thought of." - Dr. Drew Conley

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Rob

"I saw a subliminal advertising executive, but only for a second." - Steven Wright

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Branding is becoming an increasingly important matter today, not only in the corporate world, but also in many other areas of life, including blogging. It seems that choosing a name is no longer enough. Your name needs to be associated in people's minds with an easily identifiable logo. According to the American Marketing Association (AMA), a brand is a "name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers."

Before our kids could read, they would still recognize places of business we drove past. These businesses had branded their signs or logos sufficiently well that even small children recognized them immediately. I'll bet many of you had the same types of experiences with your kids, proving the effectiveness of branding.

The current economic woes have prompted some businesses to consider altering their logos. See how many of these you could still recognize if they became the new logos.

We might as well laugh about things we cannot change, huh?

Several have remarked that I do not have a logo for my blog. I'm not sure what my logo should look like. For most of my visitors, the various scenes from Paris in the header are an identifying feature for ivman's blague - my special trademark. If you were designing a logo for my blog, what would it look like?

Happy Bonza Bottler Day!

Today is one of the twelve we have each year. You can check out the official page set up and maintained by the family of the holiday's founder. The logo on the right is the official logo.

quotation...

"We live in a world of unsatisfied desire." - Dr. Drew Conley

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Rob

Advertising: The science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it.

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I mentioned in my last blog post that I have chosen not to have ads on my website. More than several people have urged me to have ads to help cover the cost of having a website. I'd rather pay the price and be in control of what appears on my site. I am reluctant to give an advertiser the opportunity and access to put anything on my site that I wouldn't want to be there.

That said, today I'm chosing to put display some ads ... for your amusement. You'll understand as you work your way down the page.

Because of the ads, some shopping bags are almost too good to throw away....

Some ads are clever, partially because of their placement....

Sometimes even though an ad is well placed, people or things end up in a bad spot...

Sometimes several ads in close proximity send mixed messages...

And then some ads are just simply poorly placed. This is one of my fears with something like Google AdSense, where Google will pick up on a key word on the page and then place an ad that seems to go with what's on a website, when it actually doesn't....

quotation...

"Everyone suffers in life. Does your suffering have a purpose? Why suffer for something meaningless?" - Dr. Drew Conley

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Rob

One good thing about kids - they don't carry pictures of their grandparents!

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