The Jolly Green Giant vs Santa

Advertising can be the act of lying about your product without trying to let the public catch on to what you are doing. There are certain advertising buzz words that we have all grown to know and love... OK... maybe not love... but we all know them. "Three in one formula" is a nice one. You could also say no one formula is good enough for the job. Even better is "triple action." Action is good in its own right... everyone loves action... but TRIPLE action... now that is some serious action. Of course... it also means that no one formula is good enough in its own right.

Sometimes the advertising is just plane contradictory. Take "new and improved." You can't improve something that is new... it is either new or it is improved. Product makers would say it was the formula that improved... making it in a sense new... but of course they want the same old brand name... packing and looks that everyone has grown to love.

I love the "no fat" label on bags of licorice. Sure enough... it's true... but it is also almost pure sugar which will still most definitely make you fat. Talk about brillient reframing there. That is good stuff there.

One of my favorites is "scrubbing bubbles." Remember the commercials with all the bubbles flying around scrubing for you? Nice. Very nice... of course they are bubbles... and in my experience bubbles don't really scrub... they just sit there or course... but it is damn nice thought that somehow these bubbles were cleaning agents for you. Powerful stuff. If someone could really invent that... nice! Like va-poo-rize in the movie Envy where they sprayed it on poo that just made it disappear... if I could get something that would just clean the toilets... now that would be nice.

And who doesn't love the 'pop-o-matic' in the Trouble game? Brilliant. If that same game did not include the 'pop-o-matic' it would never had made it. "O-matic" is a brilliant buzz word. You can throw "O-matic" onto just about anything and create a nice buzzword. Google O-matic and you will see how many times this has been done. Anything you need done... just create a product and put "o-matic" in the name and there you go. Chore-o-matic. Exercise-o-matic. Bill-o-matic. Toilet-clean-o-matic.

Then we have the newer buzzwords... like organic and green... and carbon footprint. Come on who wouldn't want to be green? It worked for Oscar the Grouch and the Jolly Green Giant. Speaking of the Jolly Green Giant... how did we let him steal 'ho, ho, ho...' from Santa. "Ho, ho, ho" was clearly Santa's saying and then along comes the Jolly Green Giant... probably because he is well... a giant, and he steals Santa's saying to sell peas. It's not right. I bet he got coal in his stocking for sure. I wonder who would win a fight between Santa and the Green Giant? To make it even we'd let the reigndeer join in... the Green Giant would swat at them like King Kong with helecopters... then Santa comes in like a Sumo wrestler to the Giant's leg... causing him to lose his balance and topple to the ground except in the next shot he isn't so huge... he gets smaller like the abomidable snowman did in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reigndeer... but the giant fights back by pulling Santa's hat over his eyes and starts to beat Santa until out of no where Yukon Cornelious whacks him with a pickaxe... OK... maybe not.

Organic, natural, green... ah yes... all wonderfull new buzzies, but Uranium is natural too... and it doesn't get much love. The world is full of organic and natural things that will kill you. The 100% whole wheat bagels I have have like 30 ingredients.

Bottom line... I think there should be an advertising buzz word hall of fame... and "pop-o-matic" should be in there... and someone needs to invent the Toilet-Clean-O-Matic... and oh yeah... Santa would totally take down the Grean Giant because Santa is good and even friendly Giants that say "ho, ho, ho" probably have some evil hiding in their closet.