Classic Covers: Sex is Like Money

Don't miss the rest in this series:

* Food is like Love
* Truth is like Beauty
* Flares are like Totally Last Decade
and
* Riding Naked and Bareback on a Windswept Beach is like Vigorously Applying Sandpaper to Your Genitalia.

He Said What?

"Was the sex tape a seminal moment, in changing your life...." (ET Reporter to Paris Hilton)

Insurance ad rant...

The dulcet spokesperson intones... "You might be surprised to learn that most people who change to State insurance save money..." Most insurance companies run advertising along the same lines. People who swap to their coverage save money, no matter which company they change from or to.

This really is not surprising.

Presumably all insurance companies have subtle differences so that each of them offer the best deal for certain types of people seeking certain kinds of coverage. And most people who change insurance companies will tend to choose the cheapest deal they are aware of that meets their needs.

Ergo most people changing from any company to any other company will save money--especially during a recession when they may also be reducing coverage.

So no, I am not surprised.

Just how stupid do the boffins at State et al think we are?

Sexy Chicks

Cosmetic Plumping

Based on my last few posts you might expect "Say No to Plumping" to be about cosmetic surgery, and it is. Sort of.

It seems even meat can't look like meat anymore. Payments are lower of you have spotted or striped pigs because the consumer doesn't know natural pigment from mold so these pigs need to be skinned before packaging. Steak is sprinkled with chemicals to help it keep a red, freshly dead color rather than a natural dark brown. And chicken is soaked in saltwater to make it fatter and heavier.

So Foster Farms makes an explicit connection between meat primping and cosmetic surgery with their "Say No to Plumping" campaign, complete with a bizarre little video with talking chickens. --"I've been thinking about having some plumping done...a lot of chicken's are having it done, Betsy." -- But, well, frankly I find chickens talking about being fatter and tastier, in the voices of chatty female friends pretty damn unappetising. If anything it makes me roll my eyes at Foster Farms.

The entire campaign website contains a total of about one page of largely unreferenced moral panic statements suggesting plumped chicken is a direct route to cardiac arrest and stomach cancer, reference to science no data actually on the site, and the whole thing excessively plumped up with talking animals. Chicken who want to be centerfold of succulant fleshiness.

Chickens are to women what public health campaign are to preachy ad campaigns--totally different things, thank you very much. (I also note that the chicken actors aren't beak or claw trimmed for our convenience. I bet all the chickens actually raised on at Foster Farms are and that whole issue worries me more than some saltwater.)

In the economic section the amount of "plump" versus real meat is calculated based on a nice heterosexual marraige with one child eating the purely speculative industry ideal of four chicken meal a week. Uh-huh. --"Plumping is deceiving, Martha."-- I am sure the idea is that natural is better. but in the end this campaign read more like a creepy male point-of-view rant about how women use cosmetics to seem more beautiful than they are, cheating the male "consumer".

Ewww.

For added "ewww" factor try replacing the word "plump" with other words in the little videos.

"The people who want to plump me say no one would ever find out".

Another advertsing WTF

Creepy: beautified image of a man restraining a tense woman.
Nasty: pack of guy watching on
Full-fledged WTF: the idea that glorifying a rape scenario will enhance a fashion brand's image.

File under: "things that make me feel old"

Since when could 80s clothing be called vintage? I still have some that I bought new. (Yes, my style may need some updating, but "vintage"?)

LOLfail

See also:
Women are Teachable! (who knew?)