I was browsing the internet, as I am often to be found doing, and I ran across an ad for durian. If you don't know, durian fruit is this massively popular fruit in India (and possibly some other countries) that tastes, to almost anyone who did not grow up eating it, like rotten garbage with some extra rotten thrown on top. The smell is so foul that hotels have big "no durian fruit" signs and they often have special charcoal filtering systems in case someone sneaks one into the hotel and eats it. They are said to have mystical qualities and people go crazy for them. There have been murders over durian fruit sales.
So you can imagine my surprise at seeing an ad for this fruit that was aimed at Americans. As I checked out the ad, here is what I saw:
Take a look at all the claims this ad makes and then stop and think. Notice something a little bit odd? In one category we have mood elevator and cause of feeling younger. Sort of like an anti-depressant that makes you happier. Next we have energizer, to which we will add helps you lose weight since diet pills also usually give you energy. Next we have sexual stimulant. Next we have relaxant. Next we have...um...helps you make lots of money?I have such a hard time thinking that people would buy this, but I guess they do.
How can one item make you happier and peppier AND help you with sexual problems AND help you fall asleep? My only guess is that it pumps you full of a speed-like substance which makes you happier which allows greater sexual performance which tires you out and makes you sleep well. And then it gets you lots of money. Or something?
Plus, we have to remember that this is a fruit. A natural, organic item. One that has not been scientifically engineered to perform a multitude of opposing functions in the human body.
The only way to achieve all those results with modern science is a drug cocktail kinda like this:
-Seroquel for happiness
-Sibutramine for pep and weight loss
-Yohimbine for aphrodisiacal qualities
-Nembutal for sleep
I don't even know where I'm going with this. I could end with the sad state of marketing ethics in our country, or how people forget to use their brains when something is promised to make them rich, or how lacking in true marketing skill most internet salesmen are...but instead I'll leave the moral up to you.
I will say one thing, however...if you ever get your hands on a durian, stay the heck away from me.
6 comments:
Well, I won't be in SJ until January 4th. :P I'm doing Thanksgiving and Christmas in Kansas this year.
The BM will be very upset.
Oh man...I don't even know if I can go to the BM without the original group. Tell Kansas hi for me. SJ misses you.
Wasn't there an 80s band..."Durian Durian" or something like that?
Yeah. People really liked them, but they smelled so bad that the first 10 rows at their concerts never sold.
a) durian is actually not so bad, i've eaten it before, but yes it does have a very strong odor. one i have to often smell on monday when i go to my vietnamese student's house.
b) do you know what durian looks like? it's a BIG GIANT spiky ball, so apparently there are not only murders over fruit sales, but my boss at the music school i worked for used to tell me that the people who harvest them in vietnam often die because they fall from the trees onto people's heads.
Yeah, I think I'll still stay away from them. I haven't tasted one so I can't say how I think they taste, but considering the extremes people go through to keep the smell out of hotels makes me not want to try.
As for (b)...holy crap! Fruit that attacks people! They should make a movie about that!
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