Business
Strange Iconography
A Scottish child and a Native-American child pour hair tonic on the head of an elderly Anglo man and massage it in, while a child soldier out of some European comic opera stands by with sword upraised in tribute.
The only sensible part of this weird iconography is the Scottish kid. Once upon a time, right up to, oh, the 1960s, "anything Scottish = cheap and economical" was standard advertising shorthand.
Original ad here, with accompanying text.
Posted By: Paul - Mon May 07, 2012 -
Comments (10)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Stereotypes and Cliches, Hair Styling, 1900s, Weapons, Hair and Hairstyling
Helen Keller Sunglasses
Yeah, she was blind and socialist. But the important question is -- can her name help sell sunglasses? A Chinese eyewear company thinks the answer is yes. Which proves, I guess, that the Chinese have become just as adept as us Americans at recycling cultural heroes into hawkers of overpriced crap. (Thanks to Bob Pagani for the link!) Check out the Helen Keller Sunglasses ad below:
Posted By: Alex - Tue Apr 24, 2012 -
Comments (4)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products
Unsafest Skies Ever!
[Click on either half of the image to enlarge.]
Original ad here.
Posted By: Paul - Mon Apr 23, 2012 -
Comments (5)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Confusion, Misunderstanding, and Incomprehension, Surrealism, Air Travel and Airlines
Cremo and Spit-tipped Cigars
We all know that ad campaigns have often created the disease or deficiency they wish to sell remedies for. "Halitosis" and "BO" were Madison Avenue inventions.But perhaps no campaign dared quite as much as that for Cremo cigars, with its charge that all its competitors spit on their product.
Original text here.
Original ad here. (Scroll down.)
But although Cremo increased its market share, their scheme ultimately backfired.
As this history says:
During the 1920s, the cigar industry began to suffer from image problems. The rise of organized crime during Prohibition, and the image of the stogie-chomping gangster--developed in part by Hollywood, and personified by such actors as Edward G. Robinson--gave the cigar an aura of disrespect among the public. Later that decade, the cigar industry faced a second crisis, when American Tobacco began promoting new, machine-rolled cigars. Its advertising asked: "Why run the risk of cigars made by dirty yellowed fingers and tipped in spit?" The image proved disastrous for the cigar industry as a whole. Cigar makers rushed to convert their manufacturing from hand-rolled to machine-rolled products, but cigar sales plunged through the 1930s. During this same time period, the cigar industry was hit hard by the rise in cigarette use across the United States. Cigar consumption never recovered to its early 1920s peak.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Apr 18, 2012 -
Comments (5)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Lies, Dishonesty and Cheating, Smoking and Tobacco, 1920s, 1930s
Follies of the Mad Men #180
[From Playboy magazine for September 1968. Click to enlarge.]
Our clothes make you look like the cliched madman who thinks he's Napoleon.
Posted By: Paul - Tue Mar 27, 2012 -
Comments (4)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Fashion, 1960s, Brain Damage
Follies of the Mad Men #179
VORWERK Stadt der Milben (Mite City) from Sehsucht™ on Vimeo.
Oh, great! Your product makes me feel like a genocidal monster!
Posted By: Paul - Mon Mar 19, 2012 -
Comments (4)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Hygiene, Europe
O. J. Wangen, Evil Paint Seller
It makes no difference whether you want your house painted or not; whether you want to use Sherwin-Williams or another brand; whether you plan to do it yourself or employ a different company. None of this counts in the face of O. J. Wangen's plan for world domination. "Let us have our way... We will have it, all or part of it in the end."
Original ad here. (Scroll down at link.)
Posted By: Paul - Sun Mar 18, 2012 -
Comments (6)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Evil, Newspapers, Interior Decorating, 1900s
Worst. Movie Theater. Ever.
Original ad here.
Posted By: Paul - Tue Mar 13, 2012 -
Comments (4)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Movies, Excrement
Follies of the Mad Men #178
My questions:
1) Did girls and women acquire those same Charles Atlas muscleman biceps shown on the box, or just boys and men?
2) Do they eat Pep on the International Space Station today?
3) Does anyone today still say, "He's got pep!" or "I feel peppy!"...?
And if you haven't had enough cereal trivia, please allow me to highly commend this new book, which is a lot of fun. My review will appear soon at THE BARNES & NOBLE REVIEW.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Mar 07, 2012 -
Comments (6)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Family, Food, Nutrition, Health, 1950s
Follies of the Mad Men #177
I'm confused: is this cereal for Beatles imitators or computer programmers?
Posted By: Paul - Thu Mar 01, 2012 -
Comments (8)
Category: Anthropomorphism, Business, Advertising, Products, Food, Cartoons, 1960s
| Who We Are |
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Contact Us |