Tying Up Loose Ends With ‘Oprah,’ ‘Mad Men,’ Wine Clubs and More

[groovedaddy]

IT is time again to ask 20 questions about advertising, marketing, the media and popular culture.

¶Is there anything more annoying than commercials that pretend a made-up word or phrase — say, “holisaleabration,” heard in current spots for A.& P. and Waldbaum’s supermarkets — is so difficult to pronounce that the announcer is required to repeat it incessantly?

¶How many people who read an advertisement for the City Harvest charity that carried the headline “For the price of a newspaper you can help us rescue 8 lbs. of food” turned to each other and said, “I don’t know; these days, that’s a lot of money”?

¶As television executives look for a talk show host to replace Oprah Winfrey when “The Oprah Winfrey Show” ends its run in September 2011, when will they figure out that “Oprah” is not really a talk show but rather a reality show about Ms. Winfrey?

¶Was it an accident that in the Nov. 1 issue of Family Circle magazine, an ad for the BrewStation coffee maker sold by Hamilton Beach was followed by an ad for the Bose Wave music system that carried this headline: “No. It won’t make your morning coffee. But it might make your day”?

¶Did the public relations staff members at the CNN cable channel notice that the headline on a recent news release — “CNN Names CNN Hero of the Year at Star-Studded Gala” — made it seem as if CNN had selected itself as “Hero of the Year” rather than that CNN had named someone the “CNN Hero of the Year”?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/business/media/30adco.html?th&emc=th

[Richardo]

1. "I see everything three times!"

- Joseph Heller, Catch-22

(actually, the quote is: "I see everything twice!"

[groovedaddy]

2. whoops! thanks for pointing that out. gd n.t