FOLLIES IN MARKETING, VOL. 4

• How much longer before corporations have purchased naming rights to everything in America? Before you answer, consider that when you call ahead to purchase tickets at Pepsi Center here in Denver, you won't pick them up at the plain old will-call booth, but at the Will-Call Lobby sponsored by Frontier Airlines. I realize that no publicity is bad publicity, but does Frontier Airlines really want their name associated with the frustration of fidgeting in line and worrying about making the opening faceoff?
  
  
• Last week, MSN.com ran a teaser link for an item reading "Get relief from killer work hours." A small image accompanied the link showing a haggard man with a clock in the background to indicate the killer hours he's been working. Here's the thing: the clock is set to 5:40. Whoa! Don't work too late there, pal. We wouldn't want you to work until 6:00 and keel over from exhaustion!
  
  
• My company does business with a company called Gay Construction. I keep picturing a bunch of sweating, shirtless construction workers wearing their GAY CONSTRUCTION hard hats and listening to the Village People on a boom box.
  
  
• The Colorado Mammoth played the Toronto Rock in the semifinals of the 2003 National Lacrosse League playoffs. The game took place in Toronto and was not televised in the US, so we went to the Blue Sky Grill at Pepsi Center to watch a television feed from Canada. We saw the same telecast as Canadian viewers, with one important difference: during commerical breaks, while Canadian viewers watched ads for Molson beer or whatever, we Blue Sky Grill patrons got to eavesdrop on the lacrosse announcers' conversation without their knowledge. The announcers cleared their throats, exchanged small talk about the weather, and discussed dinner plans while we listened and laughed.
  
  During one commercial break, we heard someone -- presumably a cameraman -- say, "Hey guys, you gotta check this out." The camera zoomed in on a morbidly obese man eating a hot dog in the middle of an otherwise empty section. To our delight, the announcers began ridiculing the fat man. "Thank you for buying the whole section, sir," one announcer giggled, oblivious that a packed sports bar in Denver could hear his every word.

+posted by Lawrence @ 5/23/2004 11:03:00 PM