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The ad shown above is possibly the most reprehensible piece of television advertising I have ever seen. Whoever thought this concept up should be taken out and force-fed the advertiser's product until they throw up or something.

It looks to me like the ad is trying to play off the success of Borat – simple people from a strange foreign country who are all craving the taste of America. And therein lies the problem - surely there should be places in the world where people just don't eat burgers. It's not part of their culture or their way of life. What right does an American burger conglomerate have to come in and feed them this stuff, even for just an ad? It smacks of arrogant cultural imperialism to me and makes this ad extremely unpalatable.

Note the way that the ad actually says very little that actually backs their claim that "the Whopper Virgins have spoken". There's no "9 out of 10 Inuits tested prefer our burger to the competitors", the ad just says "these individuals prefer the Whopper". So maybe only the three or four people we see actually prefer the Whopper. What if they fed burgers to 400 Thai tribesmen and only one liked it? Ah, weasel words at their very finest.

Finally, the look on some of their faces as they point out the Whopper seems to suggest they'd rather be eating anything else than a burger (Check out the Romanian lady at 19 seconds). However, they're only given the choice between the two burgers in front of them. It's almost like they're being asked "which pile of mud tastes better?" and a victory seems damning with faint praise.

Really, the only way this ad could be worse, be more cultually insensitive, is if they'd decided to take their beef-filled sandwiches to a small village in India and ask them what they thought of it.

Posted in: advertising, chaosboy, united states, weirdness on December 15, 2008 at at 10:24:00 AM 1 comments    

Last weekend, Portland played host to one of the craziest days of entertainment that I have ever witnessed - the Red Bull Flugtag. Flugtag means "flight day" in German (Red Bull being an Austrian company), and it certainly lived up to its name.

A crowd that has been estimated at being in the vicinity of 80,000 people crammed into Tom McCall Riverside Park, the Hawthorne Bridge's entire southern sidewalk and one east-bound lane, and even the Eastbank Esplanade on the other side of the Willamette River (which was jam-packed with boats both big and small) for this event, which is interesting in itself.

You see, ol' PDX generally prides itself on being staunchly anti-corporation, looking somewhat down its nose at coffee and fast food chains because we're better than that here in Portland, don't you know? Except when afore-said corporation is promising a day chock full of idiots throwing themselves and their home-made magnificent flying machines off a 30-foot high runway into the drink. Then we'll drop everything and turn out in droves.

And we did. I've never seen the riverfront so full, not for the Blues Festival, the Brew Fest, Barack Obama or anything. I arrived a little late and tried to force my way through the seething masses to take some pictures from down the front - it was impossible. I eventually found a few good locations on the periphery of the park, but things were hectic the whole time.

As for the flugtag itself, it was all about showmanship and spectacular crashes and the crowd loved it. We had a giant plane made out of "Lego", complete with "Lego Men" pilots, the Winnebago from Spaceballs (crowd favourite), pots of gold, sporting mascots, hot dogs and more. Some of the "planes" didn't even have wings! The winner flew some 60-odd feet, but no one really cared. Distance was irrelevant; the crowd only cheered for suicidal death plunges into the murky water below and everyone went home happy.

Posted in: chaosboy, photography, portland, sport, weirdness on August 6, 2008 at at 8:49:00 PM 0 comments    

... you hear an ad for a family law firm on the radio and their phone number is 1-800-DIVORCE.

Posted in: chaosboy, united states, weirdness on November 7, 2007 at at 8:49:00 AM 0 comments    

As you might expect, Halloween is big business here in the States. It kicks off what is known as "the Holiday Season", simply because there's a big holiday festival going on for every month until the end of the year - Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas... an endless orgy of consumerism to be had! As Halloween is pretty much non-existent back home in Australia, I thought I'd give you a bit of a look at what goes on around here during Autumn... I mean Fall, he he he!

Here's the display of enormous carving pumpkins at our local supermarket. There are pallet after pallet of these jack-o-lantern's-in-waiting, all for the bargain basement price of 17 cents a pound! Christine and I bought two, one of which cost $4, so it weighs 23 pounds or over 10 kilos! We're heading over to Kim's place tonight for a night of pumpkin carving, which should be both messy and highly amusing!

This is just one of four aisles in the supermarket dedicated to Halloween-themed goodies. From all your trick-or-treat candy supplies, to costumes for kids and adults alike, to cheesy and unnecessary toys, to ridiculously overblown outdoor display pieces - it's all here for you to purchase. Just as Christmas light displays are now de rigueur both here and in Sydney, so too are Halloween displays here, complete with giant inflatable ghosts, pumpkins, spiders and spooky castles. One-upmanship over your neighbours' displays is, of course, mandatory.

On an aside, perusing these aisles led me to discover that what we call Mars Bars are known as Milky Way bars in America, and what we know as Milky Ways are called something else again... weird!!

Here's some pumpkin beer! Honest! It's on special already, before Halloween, so it may not be such a big hit. And in case you're thinking that this is the strangest Halloween beverage, you'd be wrong:

Burgerville is offering Pumpkin milkshakes! By all reports, it's actually quite delicious, sweetened with cinnamon and nutmeg, but the concept by itself is a little mind-boggling!

So, pumpkin carving tonight... I'll let you know how my masterpiece goes!

Posted in: chaosboy, united states, weirdness on October 18, 2007 at at 12:34:00 PM 1 comments    

Have a look at this ad that I found in the latest issue of Portland's Willamette Week newspaper and boggle along with me:

Leaving aside the terrible clip art design, here's an ad that tries to do the impossible - make chewing tobacco sexy. Something I thought was the preserve of aging Major League baseballers and old Western movie stars is still alive and well, and what's more, is being marketed as the "cool" and "in" thing for the young and hip. Yes boys, find a girl you like and give her a kiss while your mouth is full of stinky black 'baccy. Sure to impress even the most choosy lass! I wonder if she'll be as impressed when your gums are diseased and your teeth have fallen out, as the big "Warning arrow" disclaimer so helpfully points out.

Big, big thumbs down here, both to the whole concept of chewing tobacco and this bizarre marketing of it. Yuk!

Posted in: chaosboy, united states, weirdness on August 31, 2007 at at 4:48:00 PM 1 comments    

So, its not the most exciting aspect of my life but I thought I would touch up on work here. While Cam gets to lounge at home I get to answer iPhone questions but mostly tell people that we don't have them. Its a cool product, don't get me wrong, but I am really enjoying how this product has taken over everyone's mind. People are crazed I tell ya. They come in and get MAD that we don't offer them. One woman tried to trade in her iPod. And its not that we wouldn't take it, she just wouldn't have it any other way than to get an iPhone in return. Store credit just wouldn't do. People should be lucky that Portland has some left at all. Chicago sold out in 50 minutes. So if you want to get an iPhone, get one, and then come to me for all your accessories. Cause, Apple will let us carry those. It's still fun watching the ongoing scurry.

We made our own iPhone.*


*Not real iPhone

Posted in: apple, chaosgurl, weirdness on July 2, 2007 at at 3:07:00 PM 0 comments    

CB: Lifted straight from Column 8 in the Sydney Morning Herald... I don't know whether to laugh or cry about this. And it certainly makes you wonder about truth in advertising:

Seen on a 'Secure Parking' ticket at Kogarah: "No promises regarding the safety and security of this car park are to be inferred or implied by the use of the word 'secure' in our trade name or logo."

Huh?

Posted in: chaosboy, Sydney, weirdness on February 22, 2007 at at 1:02:00 PM 0 comments    

CB: So what are we looking at here? Believe it or not, this is a group of 300 or so man-made islands in Dubai that have been specifically designed to look like the Earth from space. So for a lazy couple of million bucks or so, you'll soon be able to have an exclusive condo in "Africa" or "Europe"... totally, totally insane. When you think of the energy and effort involved in even thinking of something like this!

And just in case you think I'm making this up... click me!

Posted in: chaosboy, weirdness on February 9, 2007 at at 1:08:00 AM 0 comments