Tag: Stupid people

Screwing Up The Brand (2)

Marketing / Advertising

Following on from yesterday’s post about Stella Artois peeing in their own soup comes yet another example of marketing silliness:

Country star Luke Combs has apologized for appearing with Confederate flags, saying he is now aware of how painful that flag is.

Ummm Luke, bubba:  the Confederate flag may be painful to some, but it is not painful to your audience.

And just so we’re clear on the concept:  that “audience” would be the folks who buy your albums, attend your concerts and wear your T-shirts;  and in a pure head count they probably outnumber the flag-hating weenies by 25,000 : 1.

Now I don’t know if continuing to display the Stars and Bars at your concerts would disenchant folks in the crowd — just in passing, I bet your next concert will reveal an absolute sea of Confederate flags in the audience — but I’m pretty sure that a whole bunch of your fans are going to be mightily pissed off that you took a knee towards the Politically-Correct Set.

And the problem with doing that is that these woke bastards are never satisfied, especially after you do it once.  Expect your lyrics to come under scrutiny from now on:  references to cheating women will be labeled “gender-hatred”, singing about booze will be considered as encouraging alcoholism, and forget your pickup truck, that gas-guzzling ozone-destroying monster.

And if a country singer can’t sing about love, booze and trucks, there’s fuck-all left for him to sing about.

Oh, and a postscript:  just wait till the vegans see this pic…

I should also point out that until I wrote this post, I’d never heard of Luke Combs.

Fracture Lines

Gummint, Mocking Furriners

Looks like the Euros are having a problem or two:

The French blame the Germans and the Germans blame the French.  The Eastern Europeans blame the Western Europeans.  The Southern Europeans blame the North.  And everyone blames the officials in Belgium.

As Douglas Murray adds:  “In other words, business as usual.”

Once again, we see proof (if any were needed) that massive bureaucracies don’t respond well to a crisis.  In this case, the Euros thought that they could get both research and supplies of Chinkvirus vaccines from the UK, but when the Brits told them to shove it — all hail Brexit! — the Euros were left holding the short end of the stick, and squabbling ensued.

The lesson is well learned Over Here, for all those who think that Big Gummint is the answer to our woes.  In a crisis, it seldom is.

 

Screwing Up The Brand

Marketing / Advertising

One of the things that drives historians (well, this historian anyway) crazy is that people just refuse to learn from history — no matter how much precedent there is for a situation where doing X results in Unpleasant Consequence Y, we just go ahead and do X anyway, expecting that the outcome won’t be total shit and that anyway, Times Are Different.

Example:  when Coca-Cola tried to change Coke into New Coke back in the mid-1980s — because The Market Has Changed, And We Need To Move With The Times — a storm of furious resistance from their loyal consumers forced them to recant and relaunch Coke as Classic Coke, going back to the same old formulation of super-sweet battery acid that the world had come to know and love.  (New Coke, eventually, went the way of its erstwhile spokesman Bill Cosby.)

The Coca-Cola fiasco should be taught in business schools everywhere, and should be an integral part of any company’s training in marketing.  It’s not the first time it happened, of course;  but it was one of the more illuminating examples of leaving your established brand alone, and all the more notable because it involved a mere carbonated soft drink, surely one of the most irrelevant and disposable products ever invented.

Clearly, the Coke fiasco has either been forgotten or willfully ignored, because:

Stella Artois owners Budweiser Brewing Group UK&I say they’ve lowered the alcohol content in its canned, draft and gluten-free versions to capitalise on the popularity of “wellness trends”.
It last cut ABV from 5% to 4.8% in 2012 citing “evolving” drinking trends in the UK.

Let’s not forget the role of the bean-counters:

But the move is said to have saved previous brewers AB inBev up to £8.6million a year in duty, according to alcoholpolicy.net.

And the result?

The latest reduction has left beer lovers fuming and sparked a surge in one star reviews across supermarket websites from customers.
…
In a scathing review on Tesco’s website, the person wrote: “Today I cracked open a can of Stella 4.6% and thought I had Covid, since I could not taste anything.”

I have no dog in this fight:  Stella Artois has always been my supporting argument when I state that contrary to popular belief, the Belgians know fuck-all about making a decent beer*.

It appears that they know fuck-all about marketing the foul stuff, either.

*As I recall, the Belgies were the first to start adding fruit flavors to their beer, which just proves my point.

No

Politics, Resistance, RINO/GOPe

…or, as George H.W. Bush used to say:  “Nah gunna do it.”

Once again, we are being implored to stop fighting among ourselves, with words such as:

There is much talk today about the splits in the Republican Party, though similar rifts plague the Democrats. But the sharpest, deepest divide remains between the two parties. Rarely in recent memory has it been so clear. Rarely has there been less of a center. Republicans must focus all their energy on regaining the majority in Congress.

Tell you what:  I’ll stop fighting with the GOPe / “centrist” Republicans when they stop acting as facilitators to the Socialists by “compromising” — i.e. yielding to the Socialists’ demands — when the Socialists seldom if ever make any concessions away from their Marxist agenda.

The Republicans’ most stunning success in recent years has been when conservatives act like, well, conservatives — ask Hillary Clinton — so the real concessions that the GOPe should be making are to us, the so-called “Trumpists*”, and not to the Marxists.

*The very next time a Republican refers derisively to a conservative as a “Trumpist”, I’m gonna give them a ball-kicking (or cunt-punt, depending on circumstances).  Leave the name-calling to the Marxists.

News Roundup

Bad News

With commentary short and sweet, like Kristen Bell.

“It’s time for a wealth tax in America.”
…no it isn’t, you rancid, fake-Cherokee Commie tart.


…actually, I can think of at least two good reasons why she was always going to make it.

Photo by Frank Trapper/Corbis Sygma


…and I think that watching Christine have her daily orgasm would probably keep depression away as well:


…but that’s just me.


…and I think it’s probably time to bring apartheid to the world of entertainment:  Black Oscars, Black Golden Globes, Black Pulitzers, etc.  Then we could all ignore them, just like we do the regular ones, while the winners can all feel good about being big fish in small ponds.


…otherwise known as “bringing the wood”.


…uttered from his position at a British university, founded in 1650 by a Zulu chieftain. [/sarc]


…and Darwin pays a visit to Nashville.


…I’m not so sure that this is a bad idea, but I will entertain arguments in Comments.


…in his defense, I should point out that he is Russian, so she probably should have known better.  Also of interest:  Wifey is quite a babe, while Mistress is a total dog — once again, Hubby is a Russian.


…never mind, it’s just the annual brainfart from the Stupidest Person In Congress, Sheila Jackson-Lee (DOA) of Houston.  Note:  not a single co-sponsor, so clearly I’m not the only one who thinks this.

Finally, from the Sports Desk: 
Apparently, we should congratulate some guys from Tampa for scoring more baskets than some other guys from Kansas.  The Tampa captain or whatever is apparently some REALLY old fart, who hadn’t yet been born when I was already on my second marriage, but who is married to a Brazilian tart with a German name.


…and good for him, say I.