Christmas Cooking Tips From Walter
A Dummy's Puppet's Ramblings - from Chip Martin, Puppet
Mannequin American views and guidelines on marketing/PR trends, news from the world of puppets and ventriloquism, bits of humor and other interesting but useless information. I post every Tuesday and Friday. For information on this puppet's background, go to http://www.dale-brown.com/.
New Products for "Re-Wearers" ... Are You Kidding Me?
P&G is testing Swash, a four-product line that, with a spray or wipe, removes wrinkles, stains and odors from clothes within minutes ... without washing. "This is meant to enhance the re-wear experience," according to P&G. The what?? Re-wear? Actually that's P&G's term for folks who grab stuff from the closet hook, or pick it up off the floor and wear it again without washing it.
Apparently there are a lot of those folks. (Most of them French, I think.) Some 75% of consumers "re-wear" three to four times weekly, according to P&G research. The alternatives to "washing" are pretty pricey.
The Swash lineup now in testing:
- Fresh It Up. A spray to remove odors, it sells for $5 for a 2.5-ounce container.
- Get It Out. A stain-erasing pen, it goes for $3 for 0.4 ounces.
- Smooth It Out. A spray to remove wrinkles, it costs $5 for 5 ounces.
- Steam It Out. A moistened cloth (seven for $5) to toss in a dryer with the clothes, it removes odors and wrinkles after 10 minutes of tumbling. (Wouldn't it be just as easy to wash the stuff.
For six months last year, P&G opened a Swash test store near Ohio State University in Columbus to see how students would respond. They determined that "College kids do not like doing laundry." No kidding? I could have told them that!! Think of the money they could have saved simply by giving me a call. As for "re-wearers," P&G may want to consider adding antiperspirant to the product line.
What Were They Thinking?
Local retail advertising sometimes naively provides examples of the edgiest and most politically incorrect forms of marketing. In this case, hot tub retailer Willow Creek Hearth & Leisure uses a campaign that appears to be an ode to the seventies and the supposed seductive qualities of the hot tub.
With headlines such as "Because you can only fit one woman in a Porsche," "Spice up your marriage with someone else's marriage," and "Lowers sperm count to the average male range," the campaign apparently is intended to set the retailer apart from typical mundane hot tub ads. Well, the campaign certainly does set them apart ... but it's not clear in these touchy politically correct times, whether or not people want to take a step backwards and relive the seventies.
And if you simply must see one of the other, much hairier versions of this campaign, click here.
As Long as We're Talking about Ads of Questionable Taste ...
Here's an ad congratulating winners of a competition ... I don't think it matters what the competition was ...
On the Other Hand ...
Here's a clever ad that I like.
Christmas Cooking Tips from Walter
We had so much positive feedback from the Jeff Dunham Christmas Special clips that we linked to in our last blog, that I decided to add some more. Here are Christmas Cooking tips from Walter, Peanut and Achmed the Dead Terrorist.
