December 25, 2009

Yes, yes, merry Christmas. Now let's talk about advertising

I am not a frequent frequenter of Wendy's, but sometimes proximity and time constraints make it an appealing enough option, and thus it was that I recently found myself in one, musing over the current ad campaign's slogans, emblazoned on the various containers and wrappers.

The first one to make me do a double take went like this: "If we sliced today's tomatoes yesterday, they'd be yesterday's tomatoes." So...today's tomatoes are tomatoes you had yesterday, but didn't slice? Doesn't that mean they're still yesterday's tomatoes? I don't know. Obviously they're trying to convey the concept of "we use fresh ingredients" , but it sounds more like they're pitching a concept for an episode of Doctor Who. "So then the Doctor transports the tomatoes 24 hours backward in time, and slices them, and then transports them 48 hours ahead, so they're simultaneously yesterday's, today's, and tomorrow's tomatoes. No, I don't know why he does it, that's all I've got right now."

Next was "Fresh beef tastes better than frozen. For proof, eat one of our hot 'n juicy hamburgers." I don't think that would actually prove the point unless you ate two hamburgers, one fresh and one frozen. And as Lorinne pointed out, this blurb doesn't actually directly state which of those the Wendy's burger would be. "Yup, this isn't very good, they were right!"

Lastly was this one, which definitely felt off, but I had a harder time putting my finger on exactly why: "Taste buds can't tell time, so even when it's late we make everything fresh." So, if the taste buds would only cut you some slack, you'd care less about serving fresh food? I think not, because you know what else can't tell time? The health code.

Those are all the ones I saw, but some online research turned this one up too: "Today's salads didn't exist yesterday." Philosophical! The lettuce existed, but not the salad. I think Hobbes wrote about this.

Posted by Francis at 12:00 AM
Comments

I don't find any of these Wendy's slogans to be illogical. But your second one reminds me of a television commercial for DiGiorno pizza ("it's not delivery, it's DiGiorno") from a few years ago.

A hapless lab tech in a Secure Military Installation is about to eat a DiGiorno pizza. Alarms go off and he is knocked to the ground by armed soldiers on the supposition that the pizza must somehow have been delivered through the secure perimeter. Afraid of being shot, the lab tech sputters, "It's not delivery... It's DiGiorno! Here... taste!"

That's the end of the commercial. The implication, of course, is that DiGiorno pizza may visually resemble delivery pizza, but tastes nothing like it.

Posted by: Richard at December 25, 2009 07:54 AM

They have one that talks about how some nerds worked out that there are 64 ways to put toppings on your burger, and puts a little "x^y" drawing next to it. This one frightened me for how accurate it was; assuming that there are 6 available burger toppings, the calculation for how many ways they can be combined on a burger is 2^6.

Posted by: Robert Hutchinson at December 25, 2009 01:42 PM

"So then the Doctor transports the tomatoes 24 hours backward in time, and slices them, and then transports them 48 hours ahead, so they're simultaneously yesterday's, today's, and tomorrow's tomatoes. No, I don't know why he does it, that's all I've got right now."

Goddammit, how did you know that was the plot for the final two episodes?

Posted by: Debby at December 26, 2009 02:12 PM

Spoiled tomatoes alert!

Posted by: Francis at December 26, 2009 02:22 PM
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