Archive for the ‘Language in advertising’ Category

Name that taqueria

April 29, 2024

From the annals of remarkable commercial names, a delicious punmanteau name for a Phoenix AZ taco truck, which just flashed by, without remark, in the first sentence of the piece “Motor Mouth” by Aaron Timms in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine:

Keith Lee is sitting in the passenger seat of a car outside Juanderful Tacos in Phoenix.

Juanderful = Juan (a stereotypical Mexican name) + wonderful, so conveying something like ‘wonderfully Mexican’ or ‘wonderful in a typically Mexican way’.


(#1) The sprightly logo (you can imagine the patter: “Hi! I’ll be your carnitas tacos today! Enjoy my meat!”); the food truck has a website, here

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Charlie on the couch

April 20, 2024

Today’s Wayno / Piraro Bizarro is a Psychiatrist cartoon with a stylized tunafish on the couch:


(#1) To understand this cartoon, you need to recognize that the patient’s not any old tuna, but Charlie, the celebrity mascot for the StarKist brand, whose widely advertised decades-long goal in life is to taste good (while — sorry, Charlie — his pursuit of good taste constantly frustrates this ambition, an experience that seems have led him to seek therapy) (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 6 in this strip — see this Page)

There’s a surprisingly rich history here (but one that might be specifically North American, so that the cartoon might be baffling to many of my readers). Summarized in this entry on the tv tropes site:

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Give your boys the love they deserve

April 11, 2024

(About naughty bits — men’s testicles and women’s breasts — so not to everyone’s taste.)

From the ads of brands site, “Ad of the Day | Manscaped Gives Men’s “Boys” the Love They Deserve”, from 3/8/24:

There’s a lot of data out there about men but only one truth… 100% of men think their “groin” is the most important part of their body. [AZ: I’d like to dispute that, since I’m deeply attached to my heart and my brain; and since if I had to choose between losing my testicles and losing my arms or my legs, I’d happily give up my balls; but that’s a topic for another day] But the problem is almost all of them feel uncomfortable talking about it. Especially when it comes to grooming. [AZ: looking ahead and clarifying this murky text, what Manscaped is deprecating here is hairy testicles, not pubic hair in general or testicles in general]

The goal for “The Boys” campaign was to stop treating male groin grooming like it’s some kind of taboo. It’s 2024 afterall, we need to normalize groin grooming for the benefit of men (and their partners) everywhere.

The challenge? How to talk about men’s nether regions in a TV-safe way. Enter the visual metaphor. The spot depicts the…you know what… as a pair of miniatures identical to every full-size male character, always attached to him at hip height. The visual allowed us to showcase exactly what the product was designed to do by changing the miniatures’ hairstyles throughout the spot.


(#1) His boys before manscaping


(#2) His boys after manscaping

This visual metaphor opened up a whole world – one where every male would have two identical groomed boys. The jokes unfolded naturally as the boys behaved like men’s body parts — bobbing around whilst jogging or floating to the top of a hot tub. And the ungroomed boys, well, they had a rough time of it [AZ: they were sweaty and uncomfortable and nowhere near as cool as other men’s boys] until they finally got a little love via The Lawn Mower® 5.0 Ultra, MANSCAPED’s newest groin and body hair trimmer.

You can watch the Manscaped “Give your boys the love they deserve” 2024 Super Bowl commercial here. A shorter version has gotten lots of play on tv.

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Grunt Oil

March 15, 2024

(Man-man sex discussed in street language, so not for kids or the sexually modest)

It’s 3/15, the day after Pi/Pie Day (in the US), and the Ides of March (everywhere), and also (in ZwickyWorld) Higashi Day — when, back in the last century, Jacques and I set off from Palo Alto CA (and Stanford) on our annual journey east (higashi) back to Columbus OH (and Ohio State); Nishi Day, for embarking on  the journey to the west, was on 12/15.

My Higashi Day was enlivened by a Fort Troff e-mail sale ad for their Grunt Oil silicone-based lube (named for the sound men make during anal intercourse). A tube of the actual product, with a plug for it that gives a relatively straightforward description of the stuff:


(#1) The packaging varies; there are less raunchy variants (missing the finger and the FUCK ME, COCK TOY! graffiti) and even raunchier ones, as we’ll see in a moment

Description: Hands-down, silicone is the gold standard for durability and slickness. Sure, water-based lubes are good when you need a quick clean up… but nothing beats the smooth, silky feel of pure high-grade silicone. Grunt Oil is super-concentrated for max longevity. It doesn’t break down in water, so you can use it in the shower. Clean up with soap and water.

Fort Troff caters to what I’ve called Ruff Dudes, hypersexual hypermacho anally hyperreceptive man-oriented men (with a fetish for sex machinery), existing in some paradoxical liminal world between actual leathermen and fantastical bdsm creatures. So #1 counts as vanilla in Fort Troff’s world.

But that’s not what assaulted my eye this morning. It turns out that the exciting feature of Grunt Oil is that it looks like cum. Creamy white jizz. This is supposed to be incredibly hot to Fort Troff’s clientele, and I’m really into cum, but an anal lube that looks like cum strikes me as a goofy idea. Even goofier than dildos scrupulously designed to replicate actual penises. (In both cases, the appeal is to the imagination, not to the senses.)

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Three shoeshis

January 6, 2024

Yesterday, in my posting “Today’s food punmanteau”, about this composition:

(#1)

The memic shoeshi is a work of art, made (mostly) from food; it is neither edible nor wearable — though it could be deconstructed, and some of its materials eaten.

In other occurrences, shoeshi is in fact food — edible sushi in the shape of a shoe.

In still others, shoeshi is in fact footgear — footwear in the shape of sushi.

And that’s what’s up f6r Epiphany: 👑 👑 👑 the three shoeshis — the art (above), the food, and the footwear.

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The power of a tiny prick

December 28, 2023

(Vast amounts of penis-talk, and frank discussion of sexual acts, so not for kids or the sexually modest.)

Appearing in the last few days, a spot tv commercial for Roman — or Ro, or ro — generic ED (erectile dysfunction) medication. It goes by very fast, but involves the administration of some medication with a needle, accompanied by a breathless voiceover, approximately:

Who would have thought that a little tiny prick could be so powerful?

I’m sure about little tiny prick / tiny little prick; in the sociosexual culture that surrounds me (in which big dicks are highly valued), my dick (which is on the lower end of normal) is pegged, sometimes contemptuously, as small (I’m happy with it, and I have some fans, but I’m understandably a bit sensitive on this point); and, in addition, like most men of my advanced age, I’m erectilely dysfunctional — hardonless — and have been for about 20 years, something I’m not particularly sensitive about (since during this time all my sex has been solitary, and there’s been a hell of a lot of it — one to three times a day, prompted by my fantasies, my dick gets a bit firm, my balls get tight, and I shoot, whoopee, like Billy the Kid) — and I wouldn’t want to add a powerful drug to the roughly 20 medications I’m taking now (but I appreciate that other guys might be anxious to get it up to please their partners and ashamed when they can’t, so ED medication is a wonderful thing at the personal level, and also to be applauded as a genuine social good).

But the commercial, with its obtrusive crude pun — prick, vulgar slang for ‘penis’ and for ‘contemptible man’ — on prick ‘a piercing, puncture’, what about the commercial?

The ads for Roman products that I’d experienced up to this one had all been serious, comforting, and reassuring, offering treatments for premature ejaculation, hair loss, and more, as well as for hardonlessness. But this one had to be a joke, one that Adweek hadn’t yet gotten around to reporting on.

Well, it wouldn’t be Roman’s first ED joke ad. There’s their 2017 number “Thinly Veiled Metaphors”. It’s a hoot.

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Placebo Domingo

December 10, 2023

Not a mangled tenor, but the Sunday (12/10) Doonesbury strip, back to savaging the dietary supplements Prevagen and Balance of Nature as expensive placebos:


(#1) Both companies advertise relentlessly on MSNBC (my background source of news and commentary), so causing me to swear a lot at my television set

These days the ads seem only to have engaging older people reporting their subjective feelings — of improved memory (Prevagen) or improved energy and well-being (Balance of Nature). No more rat studies. Just placebo effects down the line.

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Naked men in Santa caps

December 4, 2023

(Rampant nakedness, juicy description of man-on-man sex, definitely not for kids or the sexually modest)

A piece of sheer raunchy frivolity. Two naked lads, a hunky bottom and a twink top, both wearing Santa caps, meet in a 12/1 mailer ad for a scene from Falcon’s gay porn flick Cum All Ye Faithful. Bottom Beau Butler has a package, a box, to offer top Trevor Brooks, who has pulled his briefs down to show what he’s got available to put into Butler’s package:

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A flagrantly gay Black Friday offer

November 24, 2023

(You can tell from the title that this posting will clearly not be to everyone’s taste, even if technically it doesn’t have to be shielded from kids.)

This striking composition of bodies (advertising flagrantly gay men’s underwear from Andrew Christian) in a HUNT Magazine e-mail offer today, 11/24:


The two men are posed as strongly differentiated in their roles, the black guy on the left as dominant, in charge, symbolically (and probably sexually) on top; the white guy on the right as submissive, subordinate, symbolically (and probably sexually) on the bottom — but evidently quite comfortable with his place, maybe even proud. If The Advocate magazine (“LGBTQ+ since 1967”) had an avant-garde wedding announcements section, this photo could be published there.

“Biggest Black Friday Ever” no doubt is a raunchy allusion to the fabled attractions of the BBC (Big Black Cock) — white guy sez, hey, I’ve got mine. (AC is often entertaining, but never subtle.)

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The breast-clutching gesture

October 5, 2023

(There will be a barely clad male model showing off his hot hairy body in Daily Jocks homowear ads; you have been warned. But otherwise this is, remarkably, a posting about art, in particular extraordinary public art)

The backdrop is yesterday’s posting “A remarkable table lamp” — about a “sculpture in bronze by George Sellers — one of his insect sculptures, in particular a magnificent staghorn beetle cast in solid bronze, on a walnut base, which Sellers has made into a lamp base”. Which I used as a proof of concept / principle, showing that it was now possible for me to post something, even with my swollen (but somewhat ameliorated) left hand, if I used my fingers on that hand gingerly. That posting was pretty bare-bones — no further illustrations of some of Sellers’s remarkable works — but it served its purpose, which was to demonstrate that I can once again post stuff, at least relatively short, uncomplicated stuff.

The current posting was intended as another relatively brief, easy affair, about a gesture, or pose, in a men’s underwear ad that happened by accident to surface on my desktop. But it led to that public art, in Fort Lauderdale FL. The two are unlikely to be connected, so there’s still a bit of a puzzle.

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