Where's the beef?

August 17, 2004 4:58 PM

Vote for your favorite ad icon and slogan! In celebration of something called Advertising Week in NYC in Sept, Yahoo and USA Today ask for your vote. (more inside...)
posted by braun_richard (35 comments total)

Click on Favorite Icon, then after you do that click on Favorite Slogan.

For the record, I picked the Pillsbury Doughboy and Where's the Beef? I almost picked Think Different for the slogan, but that Where's the Beef lady just cracked me up!
posted by braun_richard at 5:01 PM on August 17, 2004

For me, Tony the Tiger barely beat out Smokey the Bear and my slogan was "Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't" because that's my personal philosophy.
posted by wendell at 5:14 PM on August 17, 2004

what kind of stinky poll is this? Where's my "Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs" guy/bird/thing? (in both categories) : >
posted by amberglow at 5:16 PM on August 17, 2004

I voted for the Aflac Duck, but it didn't have my favorite slogan: AFFFFFLAAAAAAAAAAC! What gives?
posted by graventy at 5:20 PM on August 17, 2004

And no "you sunk my battleship!" Or "when it absolutely, positively, has to be there overnight." And where's the "don't squeeze the Charmin" guy or Madge the Manicurist or Mrs. Olsen, the Folgers coffee lady?

Putting the Merrill Lynch bull on the list is just insane!
posted by braun_richard at 5:25 PM on August 17, 2004

And let me pre-emptively declare that this thread can NOT be called a "Pepsi Blue" since there are NO icons or slogans associated with any Pepsi products in the poll.
posted by wendell at 5:25 PM on August 17, 2004

Is the "wise owl" the "How Many Licks" Tootsie Pop one?

"A' one...a' two...a' three...CRUNCH!

A' three."
posted by rushmc at 5:26 PM on August 17, 2004

The Kool Aid man totally got best mascot. OH YEEEEAAAAH!

I think I went with the "mind is a terrible thing to waste" slogan because it was actually both catchy and for a worthy cause.
posted by mathowie at 5:28 PM on August 17, 2004

Wait a second, I just noticed...Master Lock is one of the icons?!?!?!? Whatever.
posted by braun_richard at 5:30 PM on August 17, 2004

AFLAC Duck, hands-down. Er, web-foot down, I suppose.

And for slogan, I just *had* to vote for the Virginia Slims (Skinny Ginny) "You've come a long way, baby" slogan. It would just be perfect for a smoking ad to win this contest...heh. And besides, it really is a catchy slogan.
posted by davidmsc at 6:17 PM on August 17, 2004

Smokey Bear. For those who would like a childhood flashback, here's the comic book we had as kids.
posted by sageleaf at 6:18 PM on August 17, 2004

That's a poor design choice to not include pictures of the icons.
posted by hobbes at 6:51 PM on August 17, 2004

Ain't consumer culture grand?

Someone had to say it.
posted by dame at 6:56 PM on August 17, 2004

I was all set to vote for Spud McKenzie, a favorite of mine as a child... Only to find he's nowhere to be found! There's no sign of the Noid either.

At least they didn't completely shatter my childhood memories, and were kind enough to have the California Raisins in the list.
posted by circe at 7:00 PM on August 17, 2004

Ain't consumer culture grand?

Hell mothafuckin' yes! It's still the one thing the USA indisputably does better than any other place on earth.

In the icon poll, I voted for Charlie The Tuna. He's a fish who wants to be eaten. That's beautiful, man.

Take that vegetarians! We're just fulfilling Charlie's fantasy.
posted by jonmc at 7:07 PM on August 17, 2004

This is the kind of thing that advertisers do to help cast their ads as "art" and "entertainment," instead of what they're really about: pushing product. They've got a pretty good culture going of people who like to watch ads just because they're funny, well-made, etc etc. This is one of the ways they counteract the average person's increasing boredom with being marketed to all the time. Go and celebrate figures that shill soda and soap if you wish. I willfully refuse to participate.
posted by scarabic at 7:48 PM on August 17, 2004

I willfully refuse to participate.

You are an inspiration to freedom loving people everywhere, brave man.

He of course drinks only soda he carbonates himself and cleans his body with homemade soap made from possum tallow (from possums that died of natural causes, natch).

The fact that you felt the need to make an ostentaious display of your "refusal to particpate" says more than your refusal.
posted by jonmc at 7:54 PM on August 17, 2004

cast their ads as "art" and "entertainment," instead of what they're really about: pushing product

The two are not mutually exclusive.
posted by davidmsc at 7:55 PM on August 17, 2004

Everything is product, whether it's "art" or "entertainment."
posted by braun_richard at 8:15 PM on August 17, 2004

These "icons" and "ads" -- are they things that one would need a tv, or radio, or magazine, or newspaper, or internet, in order to understand?

Damn straight, Skippy. DAMN straight.

I love creativity -- these things are no less "art" than the Mona Lisa or some other such works commonly hailed as "great art" -- truly.
posted by davidmsc at 9:05 PM on August 17, 2004

Cholly Toona for me too -- he was always like the anti-hero of advertising. (Plus he was dressed as a beatnik in the old B&W '50s spots, in beret and shades.)
posted by Vidiot at 9:27 PM on August 17, 2004

Except, davismsc, that artists aren't usually trying to sell you more than their art. And that art is one of the last artisnal fields. And that bad art doesn't hurt you and bad corporations can.

I don't begrudge people their enjoyment of commercials. I wish it wasn't like that. I think it's bad for our culture that people get so attatched to things that are trying to sell them stuff, but it is also human. And it's part of such a bigger thing that to pick on people for it, blah blah blah.

But it isn't the same as the Mona Lisa or even a Damien Hirst.
posted by dame at 9:28 PM on August 17, 2004

Yep - I have to apologize for the hubristic attitude that perhaps the ad awards are yet another engineered cumshot from an industry that loves to manipulate your reactions for profit. I know, it's crazy, paranoid, totally anti-fun, and just plain strange to imagine that the multi-$billion ad industry would have an ulterior motive for celebrating their own creative products. But then, I am an arrogant prick who fancies himself nobler than thou because he makes his own soap.

Not. I will say, however, jonmc, that at the moment I read your comment, I was, in fact, enjoying a glass of beer I brewed myself (which would indeed include carbonating it myself). OI! You really walked into that one.

I'm not saying bad post, btw, braun_richard. Not at all. Nice one, in fact.
posted by scarabic at 9:31 PM on August 17, 2004

Actually, this has got me wondering, why do those of you who voted think you did, and why do you think you prefer one icon to another? Is it a passion thing or a boredom thing? If the former, what do you think is the genesis of this passion?
posted by dame at 9:37 PM on August 17, 2004

This almost could be a hoax perpetuated by adbusters.
posted by Duck_Lips at 12:59 AM on August 18, 2004

Ain't consumer culture grand?

Hell mothafuckin' yes! It's still the one thing the USA indisputably does better than any other place on earth.

You've never been to Japan have you? ;-)

So where do I vote for 'No Logo'? And where do I go to vote the current crop of Google olympic logos as the worst logos in the history of anything ever?

scarabic: Fuckin' word.
posted by i_cola at 3:48 AM on August 18, 2004

why do those of you who voted think you did, and why do you think you prefer one icon to another?

Because I find ducks to be outrageously whimsical and humorous. Especially ducks that can talk.
posted by davidmsc at 4:50 AM on August 18, 2004

I know, it's crazy, paranoid, totally anti-fun, and just plain strange to imagine that the multi-$billion ad industry would have an ulterior motive for celebrating their own creative products.

To which I can only answer, so what?

I don't neccessarily object to being sold to, I'm a big fan of (regulated) capitalism. And for all my love of Charlie The Tuna, I've always bought Bumble Bee instead of Star-Kist, so just how effective were those ads anyway?

OI! You really walked into that one.

Ooh, ya got me, nature boy. Soda and Soap were items you chose to mention in your original comment, but them aside, I'm sure you've got some manufactured brands in your life somewhere.

Actually, this has got me wondering, why do those of you who voted think you did, and why do you think you prefer one icon to another? Is it a passion thing or a boredom thing? If the former, what do you think is the genesis of this passion?

The same reason I'd vote in a poll about favorite NY buildings or parks. These ads and icons are part of our cultural landscape. Besides I am an unabashed lover of popualr culture (of which ads are a part, even though even I agree that some advertising is invasive and obnoxious, which you would imagine would make it ineffective, but they keep doing it for some reason). Read any of Paul Lukas' Beer Frame zines or hit his website. Like other pop culture, ads are a great way to get a look at our collective conciousness. That is unless y'all like to pretend that you're not a part of that.
posted by jonmc at 6:45 AM on August 18, 2004

Like other pop culture, ads are a great way to get a look at our collective conciousness.

See:

Lacan, Jaque, "The mirror stage as formative of the function of
the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience" Delivered at the 16th International Congress of Psychoanalysis, Zürich, July 17, 1949

And some of the secondary literature based upon this work: applying psychoanalytic techniques to use advertising as a way to understand the development of society much in the same way a therapist uses dreams to understand the psyche.
posted by ChasFile at 7:07 AM on August 18, 2004

As often advertising does, as others have pointed out, reflect our innermost insecurities by invoking them as a way to sell. Ads often contain coded messages and hidden meanings that reflect both what we are and what we long for (the I/the Other) in much the same way that Freud believed that dreams did. "Buy this product, and be more of man! Buy this product, and you'll never be uncomfortable in social situations again!" etc. etc. etc.

Of course, constantly being bombarded with messages designed to make us painfully aware of our own shortcomings so that we might go consume as a way to mollify that pain is probably not a Good Thing.

But being informed and aware of what they are doing, and what it says about our wants and desires as a society, probably is. Many in contemporaty media studies, psychoanalysis, anthropology, and sociology are involved in this. To say that advertising has no other worth besides pushing product misses its potential as a subject of meta-analysis. That's right, I said "Meta-something." You go, girl.

Many people consider themselves outside the consumerist society, jonmc. The extent that this can actually be accomplished is debatable, I'll agree. But just because advertising is a cetral part of your cultural landscape, don't assume it is in everybody else's. That would open yourself up to the most vicious label academia has, the scholastic equivalent of the n-word: ethnocentric [shocked gasp].
posted by ChasFile at 7:21 AM on August 18, 2004

Many people consider themselves outside the consumerist society, jonmc.

There's a guy on the corner of Downing and Bleecker who considers himself a victim of the Warren Commissions brain-imp-lantation campaign. They're both deluding themselves.


That would open yourself up to the most vicious label academia has, the scholastic equivalent of the n-word: ethnocentric [shocked gasp].

Of course I'm ethnocentric. While I certainly make it a point to listen to just about every POV I possibly can, and can usually find something to sympathize with in almost all of it, ultimately it's impossible for me to truly have a veiwpoint other than my own. Besides, academia's opinion of me is not a big concern.

Sorry if I'm coming off a little angry, but I'm having my usual morning back spasms and right now, I'd probably beat up a nun if she crossed my path.
posted by jonmc at 7:32 AM on August 18, 2004

Is it bad that I have no idea who Wise Owl and Master Lock are? I'm familiar with the latter brand, but I've never heard of the mascot.

(For the record, my choices were the AFLAC duck and "Friends don't let friends drive drunk.")
posted by etoile at 9:59 AM on August 18, 2004

I think the nonconsumerist position is a little more complex than you guys are giving it credit for being. I don't like advertising. I don't like how it is everywhere, never giving me a break from being sold. I don't think I am beyond it, but I do try to ignore as much as I can and interrogate/mock that I can't, because generally it promotes values that aren't mine and tries to make me feel bad or incomplete. I don't want to feel that way, so I try to avoid all of it. I think other people might be happier if they did so too.

ChasFile, I spent four years studying Lacan and semiotics and I am aware that people approach advertising sociologically. I do however think the conclusions that are usually drawn are dull, unoriginal, and mostly terribly obvious if you think about it for ten seconds. So I was wondering why other people thought they were drawn to it, not why Lacan thought they were.
posted by dame at 10:13 AM on August 18, 2004

I spent four years studying Lacan and semiotics

So, how are things down at Wal-Mart?

I Kid. I'm a kidder.
posted by jonmc at 11:10 AM on August 18, 2004

Is it bad that I have no idea who Wise Owl and Master Lock are? I'm familiar with the latter brand, but I've never heard of the mascot.

That's because I don't think Master Lock HAD a mascot/icon, unless they're counting the lock itself, which is ridiculous. That's why I think it's an odd one to put on the list.

As for the Wise Owl, I think it's the Wise Potato Chip owl (I say that because of the R registered trademark next to it) and not the Tootsie Pop wise owl in the tree. Though I think the latter is a better icon for the list (did the Wise Owl even do anything except appear on the packages??).
posted by braun_richard at 12:56 PM on August 18, 2004