But I will defend them to the end. I would NEVER do this for any other product. I defend them like I would a crap friend.

November 26, 2008 5:09 AM

Ever wondered what makes people complain about the media? An Apple ad was recently banned by the ASA as it was felt that the ad exaggerated the speed of internet services. Could the complainants have been genuinely mislead about the phone's services? In the case of one complainant, a man who had queued on release for the first iPhones to arrive in the UK, it seemed an ideal way to fight back against poor customer service. "We arent a cult, we are just a brand..."
posted by mippy (23 comments total)

twice as fast my asshole!!!!
posted by spicynuts at 5:34 AM on November 26, 2008

spicynuts'll do that to ya.
posted by gman at 6:01 AM on November 26, 2008 [5 favorites]

Not sure I understand what happened with the man. Is there some sort of insurance thing for the iPhone in the UK that isn't elsewhere?
posted by Manhasset at 6:48 AM on November 26, 2008

Not a cult?! Well, what the fuck am I supposed to do with all this Kool-Aid?
posted by solipsophistocracy at 6:51 AM on November 26, 2008

I've been pretty annoyed with their recent ad about downloading apps. It has this voiceover saying things like, "This is how you find an app. This is how you download it." etc... But at the end there's clearly a disclaimer that says, "Some steps removed and sequence shortened" which makes me think, "uh then that's NOT how you find an app is it?"
posted by like_neon at 6:53 AM on November 26, 2008

why wait to have a complaint with the company? why not just complain about an ad by any company you don't like. this is how wars will be fought in a market democracy - with armies of complainents seizing the moral highground. this is what the mail did wth ross&brand anyway. i'm off to watch some daily mail ads for inaccuracies. cant be hard, the paper's riddled with them
posted by criticalbill at 6:55 AM on November 26, 2008 [1 favorite]

"Many of the Jonestown survivors and their families find the Kool-Aid references and jokes insensitive and deeply hurtful -- reminders of the tragedy they suffered and, worse still, the widely held perception that the men, women and children in Jonestown were a bunch of crazies who willingly committed suicide out of blind devotion to their leader." cite.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:01 AM on November 26, 2008

The Jonestown Massacre didn't involve Kool-Aid^tm, but rather Flavor-Aid. One more public relations triumph for Flavor-Aid (in that no one realizes it was them) and a disaster for Kool-Aid (the innocent party).

It's like saying that the Nazi's drove people to the gas chambers in Teslas.
posted by blue_beetle at 7:05 AM on November 26, 2008 [1 favorite]

Many of the Jonestown survivors and their families find the Kool-Aid references and jokes insensitive

what they want to do is complain
posted by criticalbill at 7:22 AM on November 26, 2008

One more public relations triumph for Flavor-Aid (in that no one realizes it was them) and a disaster for Kool-Aid (the innocent party).

Did sales of KoolAid (I must say Bob Geldof missed a trick there somehow) drop radically after their mistaken association with jamestown? personally i've never heard of flavoraid so i suspect that koolaid are doing pretty good out of this error, seeping the brandname far beyond its usual realm
posted by criticalbill at 7:25 AM on November 26, 2008 [1 favorite]

I stopped drinking Kool-Aid for good after a short but sweet experiment with turning my feces a dull, sickly hue of every color on the spectrum just by ingesting various "flavors" of a slightly concentrated mixture of the stuff.
posted by mrmojoflying at 7:26 AM on November 26, 2008

"We arent a cult, we are just a brand..."

Way to muddy the cult.
posted by Sys Rq at 7:49 AM on November 26, 2008 [1 favorite]

"We arent a cult, we are just a brand..."

Actually, with the number of members and the general acceptance by most societies, it would probably be more accurate to say "we aren't a cult, we are a church."

I know that I'm certainly looking forward to an iCommunion widget.
posted by quin at 8:26 AM on November 26, 2008

I was interested in the debate about design v function in the comments here. Given that I'm being convinced to get an iPod and find them pretty but very very fiddly to use...
posted by mippy at 9:49 AM on November 26, 2008

I'm led to believe that Kool-Aid tastes the same as the sour sugar you get on Haribo and Sour Patch Kids. Is this the case? What does Kool-Aid taste like anyway - is it some sort of cordial?
posted by mippy at 9:51 AM on November 26, 2008

I know that I'm certainly looking forward to an iCommunion widget.

When you use it you will hear Steve Jobs saying "Take, eat: this is my body..."
posted by TedW at 10:00 AM on November 26, 2008

"Many of the Titanic survivors and their families find the "re-arranging the deck chairs" references and jokes insensitive and deeply hurtful -- reminders of the tragedy they suffered and, worse still, the widely held perception that the men, women and children onboard were a bunch of crazies whose obsessive desire for feng-shui left them unable to perceive the peril they faced."

Sometimes people wind up part of an event which in a larger context is misrepresented, misunderstood, etc. Like it or not, the "drink the Kool-Aid" reference will probably be around beyond the point some future Metifite cleverly links to a historical episode from 100 years ago that reminds everyone this phrase had its genesis in actual events. I personally think the common usage insinuates willing co-conspirator rather than toxic malleability as referenced in the article. Maybe that's the same thing.
posted by secondhand at 10:14 AM on November 26, 2008

mippy: The "sour sugar" on haribo and sour patch kids is granulated ascorbic acid. You can buy it all by itself -- it's used for things like preventing oxidation in apple products and acidifying home preserves (tomatoes and such). But be careful if you like sour patch kids -- the stuff's like crack. You'll find yourself eating it with a spoon and going "OM NOM NOM."

Kool-Aid is a variously-flavored powdered drink mix that generally tastes almost, but not quite, exactly unlike whatever it claims the flavor is on the packet. Some kinds require you to add sugar, some don't.
posted by rusty at 10:41 AM on November 26, 2008

Some kinds require you to add sugar, some don't.

I totally misread that as "some kids require...", which reads just as well, oddly enough.
posted by Lemurrhea at 11:11 AM on November 26, 2008 [1 favorite]

I have never yet met a kid who doesn't require you to add sugar.
posted by rusty at 12:23 PM on November 26, 2008

Dragging this vaguely back on topic:

Lying outright in adverts is banned in the UK. The apple TV ads were heavily misleading over how fast the broadband actually was, by showing speed that was unobtainable in the real world without your own personal cell tower in your house, and then trying to skate over this with small text at the bottom 'network performance will vary', while still saying 'really fast'.

The advertising standards agency determined this to be A Lie, and banned the advert.

With regards insurance; mobile phone contracts in the UK often come with an add-on for insurance of the handset in the event of theft or the like, as home contents cover often does not include things like mobiles as standard. Not owning a JesusPhone, I don't know if he paid extra for the O2 insurance or if it came included in the £45 a month minimum contract.
posted by ArkhanJG at 12:41 PM on November 26, 2008

Though thinking about it, I just wish the ASA would also give our politicians and Daily Mail headlines the once over.
posted by ArkhanJG at 12:43 PM on November 26, 2008

What does Kool-Aid taste like anyway?

It tastes approximately like fruit juice (with the somewhat disconcerting caveat that no fruits are involved).
posted by ryanrs at 8:14 PM on November 26, 2008