h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I know quite a few people have had a good beef about Am*zon in the past, but I've never had a problem. However, what dipstick of a marketing man thought the tagline of '...And You're Done' would cause people to believe that they were an honest company?

This is comparable to the weakest tagline ever, which used to reduce my brother and myself to hysterics every time we saw it. A certain well-known supermarket chain sold own-brand chocolate Krispies under the innovative and thought-provoking line: "....They're Chocolatey!!!"

B

...and yet another thread of Master B's dies a withering death.

B

Oi oi! Cheer up!

My own vote for the worst bit of marketing ever would be the advert that you couldn't move for seeing on ITV a few years back in which a blonde actress whose name I can't remember but who used to be Lovejoy's girlfriend in the later series began by inviting you to pause and wonder in astonishment at the idea of needing to drink eight glasses of water a day before inviting you to add some sort of cordial to those eight glasses. And the tagline?

"Makes water taste . . . really nice"

How has something so bland stuck with me all this time?

Well technically the "And you're done" slogan is accurate, as long as you've used them before and you've got one click ordering enabled (namely you click once on the item, and half an hour later you get an email back saying that Half Life 2 is now delayed to April 2004 because some so and so stole a substantial part of the source code and enough elements to leak an alpha release to the net, so it's now got to be rewritten).

See, you say your thread died a slow and horrible death, then you get a simulpost!

Yeah - it's getting really crowded in here now.

Nah there's plenty of room

And what's with all the bum slapping in the Asda adverts? sureley that's a sexual harrasment case just waiting to happen.

Well, not if it's their own bums, since I don't think you can sue yourself. But certainly those ones at the end of the ads, where it's just from the waist down and there's some ambiguity as to hand and bum belonging to the same individual. Lawsuit waiting to happen, definitely.

"I'm really a very good driver"....

That's more of a case of (wanting to) shootthe messenger than a bad slogan. But what were they thinking??

Stack of incriminating photos of various Esure executives in Michael Winner's spare bedroom? I can't think of another reason ...

Derby City Council's decision to put sodding great banners all over the city announcing "Derby! The city where you can" seems rather foolish in retrospect. Less than 24hours later, said sodding great banners were announcing-

"Derby! The city where you can pick up cheap whores", and "Derby! The city where you can buy great drugs".

Guinness once asked Brendan Behan for a marketing slogan. I've never been sure whether or not he meant it when he offered them "Guinness makes you drunk". After all,it's simple, true and to the point, so how can it possibly be acceptable?

am having trouble gettin my head goin this morn, but i can think of the worst product name ever - "yakult" its terrible! yak is someting i associate with camels, who spit on you, so already they are not too high in my book of things i like and don't, and "ult" is almost 'cult' and rhymes with something similar sounding

"Guiness makes you drunk" - the whole story. Guiness wanted Brendan Behan Ireland's greatest living poet (and notorious artist) to come up with a slogan. "OK then", he agrees, "you'd better send me a couple of crates of the stuff." Guiness duly complies; their representative calls around the following morning to hear the inspiring words "It gets you drunk".

Leastways that's the way I heard it.

Another brilliant piece of advertising: "NOTHING works faster than Anadin". Great, take nothing then.