Ridiculously silly concept.

Can anyone decipher the following ad for me?



This full page execution for FAGE yogurt appeared on the inside back cover of February's Bon Appétit.

My only question: what on earth does it mean?

You'll have to excuse my dairy product naivete here, but is ridiculous thickness an ideal quality in yogurt? I have to assume so, if that's the USP they're going with. I assume readers of food publications like Bon Appétit would understand better than I do, but the ad makes zero sense to me at all.

What does the thickness have to do with bees? Are you saying bees could use it to make honeycombs? I really think I'm missing something here, so I set out to investigate.

The website all follows the same motif, and quite frankly is really well done as far as intertwining graphics and web design while still having a navigable site.

The navigation bar sinks into the ridiculous thickness depending on which side you clock on. Props for that.

Things I learned from the website:

• FAGE is a Greek company founded in 1926
  
• FAGE is pronounced Fa-yeh (but it's all Greek to me...rimshot)
  
• They "never make a product that we would not give to our children"
  
• The thickness comes from the use of 4 pounds of whole milk in every 1 pound of yogurt
  
• The containers it comes in are called "pots," which kind of gives off that homey feel that grandma is churning this stuff out in her kitchen. That may or may not be a good thing.
  

Things I did not learn from the website:

• If beekeepers are beginning to use the yogurt to build artificial hives for their bees.
  
• Why FAGE is still paying their ad agency to come up with honeycombs pressed into really thick yogurt.
  

The lesson here, kids, is that although we can do some cool things with graphics, it doesn't mean we should. While yogurt is about as boring a category as you can get (wait, what am I saying? What about GOGURT!?), you don't have to throw all logical strategy out the window in order for people to look at your ad. In fact, I'm not sure I would have noticed this if a friend wouldn't have asked me, "do you understand what this means at all?"

If it doesn't stand out, it doesn't make sense and it quacks like a duck, chances are it's not a good ad. Unless it's selling yogurt pots by the busload, in which case, go nuts Fa-yeh.

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Coupons: Offers you can't refuse

Allow me to begin by saying that I don’t really like McDonald’s, or fast food in general. When it’s convenient, my other options are limited, and I have yet to add a coating of lard to my major arteries in a given week I’ll splurge on a Value Meal.

Yesterday was different. I had an overwhelming urge to go out of my way for a Big Mac.

You see, I found a series of coupons on my kitchen counter which I assume came out of this past Sunday’s paper. The coupons were all “buy one _____ get one free” from McDonald’s. For some reason, they caught my eye, and it just so happened that I had a limited window in which to eat lunch. Without thought, I clipped the coup for BOGO Big Mac, and went off to Mickey D’s.

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There had to be something about that coupon that made me think I was getting an unbelievable deal. I of course ordered the two sandwiches, along with a large fry and a tea. I then proceeded to take part in one of the favorite sedentary activities of Americans; eating the fast food in my car. Because if you’re going to develop Adult Onset Diabetes, what better way than to not even give your fat ass the time of day to sit down and eat.

As I said, I don’t even like fast food, but something about that coupon made me feel like I couldn’t pass up the deal (they expired on August 1st!).

I’m not your stereotypical coupon clipper, yet I was reeled in. This incident has led me to realize what an easy print ad opportunity coupons really are. Their purpose is twofold: remind you that a place exists (or tell you about it for the first time), and give you an incentive to go (a discount or something for free).

As an added bonus to the advertiser, if you include the “must surrender coupon at purchase” clause, you can easily track your rate of return. If you run a commercial instead, you offer no additional incentive to come into the establishment and you have no idea which customers are there in part due to the ad.

In the money-centric society in which we live, we can’t pass up a bargain, especially for extra calories. Oh, and that second free sandwich? I wasn’t even able to finish it. You win this round, McDonald’s.

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