I don't pay much attention to advertisements most of the time, but two have been driving me nuts lately.
One of them, a Starbucks billboard I pass every day on the way to work, announces the arrival of the orange creme frapuccino just in time for summer. "Orange creme-tacular," the ad proclaims. Now, that in itself isn't so annoying, but whoever designed the ad typeset the phrase so it looks something like this:
One of them, a Starbucks billboard I pass every day on the way to work, announces the arrival of the orange creme frapuccino just in time for summer. "Orange creme-tacular," the ad proclaims. Now, that in itself isn't so annoying, but whoever designed the ad typeset the phrase so it looks something like this:
orange creme-
TACULAR
TACULAR
Now, I don't know about you, but for me, my eye is immediately drawn to the quasi-word on the bottom and I think to myself, what is that? Did the advertisers invent their own adjective? "Tacular": (adj.) resembling a taco, derived from the name for a popular Mexican food. This isn't clever; it's just confusing. Every time I pass it, my thoughts jump to Mexican food, not coffee.
The other ad that's made me scratch my head in befuddlement is a commercial for a credit union. In it, two women are travelling in an Asian country. One woman stops at an ATM and insists to her friend that her credit union card will work anywhere in the world. When she gets cash, she fans it out and waves it in her friend's face, saying "See? I got money!" right before they get in a cab. This commercial confuses me because it flouts common sense. It's ridiculously stupid to wave your wad of bills around right in front of an ATM no matter where you are, but especially stupid and dangerous when you're a conspicuous tourist.
The other ad that's made me scratch my head in befuddlement is a commercial for a credit union. In it, two women are travelling in an Asian country. One woman stops at an ATM and insists to her friend that her credit union card will work anywhere in the world. When she gets cash, she fans it out and waves it in her friend's face, saying "See? I got money!" right before they get in a cab. This commercial confuses me because it flouts common sense. It's ridiculously stupid to wave your wad of bills around right in front of an ATM no matter where you are, but especially stupid and dangerous when you're a conspicuous tourist.
No comments