Looking for Comedy in the Consumer World … 

photo credit: faeryboots

Bring back my Tropicana!

First, those smarties at Tropicana figured out that their fresh, hip new package design in a word, SUCKED.

Consumers, in all their wisdom, loathed the new look and rightfully so. (Remember, I called the alarm way back in December when I noticed the shift on my own local grocery stores.)

When shopping and viewing the juice shelves from my stroll mid-aisle, there is a sea of white on white, splashes of hard-to-read orange dancing across my eye sight. I can barely make out the where the bottles begin and end.

It’s like a snowy fairyland in there but where’s the damn juice?

I have to wonder if any of those branding wizards thought about taking a few mock-ups of the design, putting them on the juice shelf, walking to the middle of the aisle and looked back. I have to think if they did, they would have saved themselves 35 MILLION DOLLARS.

That’s right. $35 millions bucks were spent, buckeroos. If the brand boyz read my blog in December 2007 where I began (Yes, I’ll accept full credit for the clarion call. Tom Chandler, my compadre in copywriting crime, told me I could.),  they could have short-circuited a crummy idea and saved themselves a whole lot more dough in bad PR and consumer karma.

I’d have been happy to accept a mil or two as a token of deep appreciation from a grateful corporation. But have I heard from anyone? Hah!

Because It Was Our Time, too – Great Writers Action Figures

Brought to you by the same folks who brought the toy world, Obama, McCain (who?), and yes even Malcolm X in full action figure mode, I bring you the Great Writers Collection! They are, in no particular order:

• William Shakespeare
• James Joyce
• Mark Twain
• Virginia Woolf (couldn’t have they made her look just a teensy more attractive? She looks like Oscar Wilde in a rusty red fright wig!)
• Edgar Allan Poe

Now here’s the thing. They’re supposed to be action figures. In my mind that means moveable parts. But these little guys – and gal – are 3″ tall with no moving parts. So they just sit there, not moving.

Jailbreak Toys (yes, that’s their name) should have, in the very least, made their little arms move and gave them pens, paper and a pack of smokes just for some sort of actionable realism. I mean, writers don’t move all that much, but we do move a little, no?

Hmmm … judging from the girth of my “Beyonce-eat-your-heart-out” backside, maybe not.

Now to the Maven question of the day:

Jailbreak Toys has given us their top 5 great writers. Who would you have in your collection and why? The Maven really, really wants to know. Best contributions will be collected and proposed to Jailbreak Toys for a Great Writers Collection, The Sequel!