The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy defines the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as 'a bunch of
mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.'

I'll be the first to admit that I don't understand marketing. By which I mean I can't understand how anyone can sit in a office and think of packaging and slogans to make me want to buy toothpaste or toilet paper or tea kettles.

Perhaps it's because I'm a man that the very notion of entering a store and not knowing exactly what I'm going to purchase is foreign to me. When I go to the shops to buy razor blades, I'm looking for the same brand of razor I've shaved with my entire life. No amount of packaging or clever slogans is going to persuade me to buy anything else. Period.

I also know that I would be terrible as a marketing executive. I could stare at a pencil all day and fail to come up with a catchy slogan to make a person want to buy my brand more than any others... What could I possible say?

It just doesn't work does it?

If I had any ability to do marketing, I'm sure I could get paid double what I make in my current job. Sadly for my checking account, I'm simply not able to do it.

Maybe if I forced myself, I could do it, but I would hate myself in the morning.

Anyway, the point behind this rambling first column is to expose what I feel are some of the best examples of marketing copy that I come across in my day-to-day life. (Yes my life is so shallow that I actually read the packaging on floppy disks!)

And to make it a bit more fun for you, my reader, I've decided to make this interactive. That's right, I want you to read my packaging description and the selected bit of prose penned by a marketing executive and place your guesses what the product might be in the forum link provided below . We'll post the answer in next week's column.

Ready to begin? Good.

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This week's product comes in a red box so it really catches the eye as it sits on the shelf. Among the descriptors for this invaluable product are the following:

Guess Here

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See what I mean about that text? It really sings about its product. Say it aloud and you'll really feel those powerful 'P' words. It makes you realize that this is one product that you simply must buy.

'Curiously enough, an edition of the Encyclopaedia Galactica that had the good fortune to fall through a time warp from a thousand years in the future defined the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as 'a bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came.'

Who Are These Marketing Geniuses Archive

Jimi X

26.02.04 Front Page

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