Follies of the Madmen #559

That endless red-carpet SFX is pretty impressive for the 1960s. Plus, an eight-track player!

Posted By: Paul - Thu Mar 16, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: Business, Advertising, Special Effects, 1960s, Cars

Rhapsody in Big Blue

Darryl Gammill came up with a way to convert stock-price movements into music. The result was the release in 1985 of "Rhapsody in Big Blue," which was a musical rendition of IBM's stock activity between April 1984 to April 1985.

I haven't been able to find any samples of the album online. I can't even find any used copies of it for sale. This was evidently an extremely obscure record release.

Popular Computing Weekly - April 3-9, 1987

Time - Sep 16, 1985

The Economist - Aug 31, 1985

Posted By: Alex - Mon Mar 06, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: Business, Music, 1980s

Rent-a-Drunk

For only $3 a night, Colin White would rent out one of the drunks from his pub to liven up a party.


So his employees could legitimately claim to be professional drunks.

Asbury Park Press - Nov 26, 1971

Posted By: Alex - Wed Jan 11, 2023 - Comments (3)
Category: Business, Inebriation and Intoxicants, Jobs and Occupations, 1970s

Follies of the Madmen #551

Posted By: Paul - Thu Dec 29, 2022 - Comments (4)
Category: Business, Advertising, Robots, Women, Twentieth Century

Hair Rental—You know it makes sense

These hair rental ads ran for about five years in British papers. So I assume the company must have done decent business.

I've heard of wig rentals, but for some reason the idea of toupee rentals seems weirder.

Sunday London Mirror - Mar 11, 1973

Posted By: Alex - Tue Dec 06, 2022 - Comments (2)
Category: Business, Headgear, 1970s, Hair and Hairstyling

SHT and SCAT

In his 1983 book Big Business Blunders: Mistakes in Multinational Marketing, David Ricks tells the following story:


I've been able to find ads for SHT, such as the one below, but none exactly like the one that Ricks describes. Which doesn't mean the ad doesn't exist. Just that it isn't in any journals archived online.

Ocean Industry - July 1984

However, among the ads for SHT that I was able to find, I found one that actually improves (and possibly complicates) Ricks's story. Because it turns out that Sumitomo had another product, Sumitomo Calcium Treatment, that it abbreviated as SCAT.

Once I could accept as an honest mistake, but coming up with scatalogical abbreviations twice seems intentional. I'm guessing either someone at Sumitomo thought it was funny, or someone at the Japanese agency was having a joke at their expense.

Ocean Industry - March 1980

Posted By: Alex - Sun Nov 27, 2022 - Comments (1)
Category: Business, Products, Odd Names, Excrement, 1980s

Harley-Davidson Perfume

Classic business failure: "Hot Road," an eau de toilette released by Harley-Davidson in the mid-1990s and quietly discontinued a year or two later. It wasn't exactly an "on brand" product.

More info: Milwaukee Magazine

image source: parfumo.net

Posted By: Alex - Sun Sep 18, 2022 - Comments ()
Category: Business, Products, Success & Failure, 1990s, Perfume and Cologne and Other Scents

A Touch of Magic

Posted By: Paul - Fri Jul 01, 2022 - Comments (1)
Category: Business, Advertising, Cryptozoology, Surrealism, 1960s, Dance, Cars

Follies of the Madmen #532

No mincing words here!

Source.

Posted By: Paul - Sat May 14, 2022 - Comments ()
Category: Body, Business, Advertising, Fashion, Underwear, Magazines, Rants, Warnings, Jeremiads, Prophecies and Cassandra-like Figures

Follies of the Madmen #529

Synesthesia in advertising.



Source.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Apr 07, 2022 - Comments (1)
Category: Business, Advertising, Fey, Twee, Whimsical, Naive and Sadsack, Children, Cereal, 1900s