Fri 2 Nov 2012
Chocolate Wheel
Posted by anaglyph under Daft Advertising, FREE!, Gadgets, Idiots, Stupidity
[14] Comments
I think I may have to invent a new Cow category: Completely Useless Objects Created By Advertisers For No Real Purposes Other Than to Increase the Material Amount of STUPID in the World. Yes, a bit cumbersome, I agree, but how else to best classify the ridiculous object pictured above, which was given to Vermilion and her friend on a recent shopping expedition?
Let me detail its physical description for you: it’s a flat round disc, about six inches across and printed on that pliable magnetized plastic which has no practical reason for existence other than for sticking on fridges. The centre black-coloured circle rotates and has a little triangular window cut in it to allow you to ‘reveal’ portions of the text.
So, by rotating to the ‘Orange’ category we see that the Club Orange chocolate is ‘Made with delicious orange pieces covered in smooth bittersweet Club® dark chocolate’:
Rotating to the left of the orange coloured segment we reveal the helpful advice that you can ‘Unwind with this perfect combo: Delicious Club® Orange complemented with a cup of tea’:
But why? WHYYYYYYYY?
You see how I wrote those identical words down and they gave you exactly the same information? Why do you need a little magnetic wheel with the suggestions hidden away out of sight until you turn it to the right position? Does someone, somewhere, actually think that I’m going to stick this to my fridge in case of frightening emergencies?
My God! I have a bar of Club® Peppermint and I’ve completely blanked on how I should enjoy it. Quick – THE WHEEL!!! (Phew, and can I say how glad I am that this ingeniuous rotation mechanism has cunningly hidden the information from the sight of a casual passer-by! Wouldn’t want the wheel-skillz-challenged knowing how to get the best out of their Club®! Am I right?)
All I can think of when I see ridiculous tsotchkes such as this is that, should I ever be inclined to actually buy Club® chocolate, part of whatever they charge me for a chocolate bar is serving to offset the cost of a useless piece of crap that nobody wants, and the wages of the advertising idiots who came up with it.
And just in case anyone from Club® chocolate should ever read this post, I’ve prepared a wheel of my own – with no unnecessary moving parts – to explain how this all works, and what your advertising agency won’t ever reveal to you:
If you like, I can print it on a magnet so you can stick it on your fridge.
I suppose you could send it to Club with a note: “you know where you can stick your wheel.”
Maybe I should send it with a reference to Ezekiel 1:16?
To me, these tsotchkes are fantastic.
The point is that you *read* it.
Would you have stopped to read a card insert about chocolate? I sure as heck wouldn’t. But I 8would* take the time to revolve that, and to read each revealed segment, just in case there was some cool secret. Because I’m like that! I can’t help it!
I guess, if I have to work for something, I appreciate it more – even if it’s advertising bumph manipulatively exploiting my instincts.
But Dewi – what about the sizeable negative effect of expecting cool secrets and getting boring ‘Why not have it with a cup of tea’?
Doesn’t that make you want to set fire to it and throw it off a high place into shark filled waters?
Nah – I’d know that those expectations were obviously false, made entirely from my own head; and I like that they hackishly exploited the way my brain works, in such a transparent but effective way; and that they gave me something to fiddle with for a few minutes.
This might just be because I don’t get many of these, though: once every few months, they have novelty. Every day, they’d likely just become time-wasting silliness. For the mind-hack to work, they sort of rely on being the only one I’ve seen in some time.
Most packaging is in excess to protect item (which is probably something with built-in obsolescence) & requires a stanley knife (useful object) for access.
Most stuff in $2 shops. Who designs this crap and can I get a job designing it? – I know I would laugh all day.
That said, I love my pink flamingo with thermometer fridge-magnet.
It’s so chocolat lovers can be precocious and trendy. You know!! Like Wine Snobs!
I think you might be onto something there Anonymous.
This chocolate and anise combination has a certain lively youthfulness but yet still a mature aura of robustness and vigor. Serve this with a joint of Muaui Wowee and a shot of single malt Old Turkey Bourbon.
I think you should get a job in chocolate wheel design.
As daft and useless as thing is, it certainly has you ranting on about it. I’ve never even heard of this particular company before. (Are they Australian?) As the old saying goes, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.” Unless you’re in politics of course, but I’m not going down that road.
I doubt the first thing on the ad agency’s mind was that the main utility of this gadget would be to get irate bloggers ranting about its uselessness. It seems like a very strange strategy.
(I’m not entirely discounting it as a possibility, but it seems to me that if that’s your game, then you could go a lot further with the concept…)
I can just imagine the advertising Jock saying “We’re going to reinvent the wheel here – no bear with me guys!”
The King
Yes, sadly, I can imagine it all too vividly also.