Sometimes adults and brands try way too hard to seem current, hip, and with it. These are some of our favorite (and fresh) pandering moments. We kind of want to give these people credit for trying.
marketing
James McMinn is a divorce attorney based out of North Carolina. But unlike most lawyers, James has a pretty wicked sense of humor. He also has a facebook marketing that might just be the most genius technique we've ever seen. We must say getting a divorce seems much less painful now.
Do you ever just stop to think about how we're living in a dystopian nightmare and that life doesn't matter at all? You go to work every day to make money just to pay for your miserable life, and then you die without ever retiring. Enjoy these tidbits from our corporate overlords!
Author, Kate O'Neill used her platform on Twitter to encourage people participating in online activities like the recent, trending profile picture aging meme on Facebook, to slow down and think about it critically. O'Neill asks people to consider how willingly posting that information online for Facebook's seemingly sentient algorithm to digest, can have a ripple effect on society as a whole; how that information can be fed into worldwide databases, sold off to advertising agencies, and used to exploit the very people that upload it, without considering the impacts, in the process. She doesn't aim to inspire panic in this Twitter thread, but instead, she wants us to think critically when considering the fast-changing landscape of the world around us. Some solid advice!
Lane Bryant has made an effort in their advertising to support diversity and body positivity. When they started a chat on Twitter with the hashtag #AskLaneBryant they opened themselves up to criticism from the public that suggests they are really falling short.
Via Chicken Treat
Something is fowl over at Australian food chain Chicken Treat.
The company has hired a new social media manager, and she's a literal chicken.
Betty the chicken has taken over the restaurant's Twitter account with the goal of sending an actual 5-letter English word by Oct. 30. And so far, she's said some pretty profound things.
=7o8hy6ho4d231wdty - 2 651`r mn 2`13w ygehr nm 11`a xzb m.9,n #chickentweet
— Chicken Treat (@ChickenTreat) October 15, 2015Whoa.
AZAVZUYTZZIIZA #chickentweet
— Chicken Treat (@ChickenTreat) October 14, 2015Groundbreaking!
Some words of inspiration from Betty. And remember: if a chicken can tweet, you can do stuff too. #ChickenTweet pic.twitter.com/fHX2t14R74
— Chicken Treat (@ChickenTreat) October 14, 2015Betty is clearly a very smart chicken. This shouldn't take too much longer.
Via KFC
Fast food restaurants have really figured out how to get on the news cycle lately — namely through doing weird stuff that makes no sense.
Not six months ago, Darrell Hammond resurrected the corporate mascot of Colonel Sanders to sling fried chicken at a hungry America. And now, for a reason that is very unclear, fellow Saturday Night Live alum Norm Macdonald is stepping into the three-piece suit to replace him.
KFC Chief Marketing Officer Kevin Hochman explained it
For the first ads, we rebooted things that made Kentucky Fried Chicken the most favorite chicken brand in the world. We brought back the Colonel's iconic office, his white stretch limo, and the children's mandolin band he outfitted with instruments and white Colonel Suits to create authentic Kentucky bluegrass music. And the new set of ads are more of that same homage to the things that made Kentucky Fried Chicken such an important part of American families.
This is pretty dumb. But we can't bring ourselves close enough to care about any part of it.
Just like McDonald's idiotic revamp of the Hamburglar.
Remember that? It doesn't matter.
Movie advertising can be super annoying.
It can also involve lighting a drone on fire and flying it around.
While we're still not sure what we think about the new reboot of the not-done-well-yet Fantastic Four movie, we are sure what we think about flying fire drones.
They are rad.
The extremely cautious safety crew for this video pulls out a man shaped, highly flammable cut out attached to flying drones then zooms it around the dark night sky, looking like Johnny Storm on his way to the Baxter Building or to fight Galactus or whatever.
We're totally fine with this type of movie promotion because a.) It shows us something IRL we've never seen before and b.) It's probably better than the movie.
The worse thing about this video is how bored those operators look while flying a flaming drone:
At least they got into the spirit a little bit:
If this sold you on the new movie, or if you wanted to see it anyway, Fantastic Four opens Aug. 7.
Via Gawker
While out on a dinner date with his husband earlier this week, Blake Loates from Alberta, Canada was shocked to find the words "You Retard" printed on the cap of her VitaminWater bottle. Outraged, Loates' father Blake, whose youngest daughter has been living with cerebral palsy and autism, then sent off an angry letter to Coca-Cola's board of directors to demand answers, to which the company responded with an apology to the Loates and an explanation that makes the story even more bizarre and incredulous. According to CocaCola Canada's spokesperson, the unfortunate wording on the cap was an unintended byproduct of a promo campaign that involves pairing up a random English word with a random French word, which by chance happened to be "retard," meaning "late" or "delayed."
Via Geekologie
Denny's is rolling out an unexpected menu, full of Hobbit-themed food options. Anyone up for "Shire Sausage" or "Gandalf's Gobble Melt?"
See if you can stomach the commercial.
