Thursday, October 9, 2008

If a door is closed, karate chop it open.

I think I laughed up a lung while reading this page: http://www.safenow.org/

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Maybe your expectations are a little high

So as we all know, I work for a MLM dietary supplement company. Being in the department that reviews marketing material, I've read some pretty crazy stuff. I've seen claims that ingesting deer antler extract gives you deer-like abilities. I've seen a distributor quote that stated she can "rest in peace" knowing that she takes our products. I've seen a distributor claim that one of our products cured her dog's breast cancer. The list goes on.

Fortunately, by the time it actually gets to the distributors, its at least a lot more realistic and defendable once it goes through all the review processes. Our marketing people are actually getting pretty good at knowing what is and isn't going to get past us and so the amount of craziness has decreased.

However, sometimes I run across other advertising for dietary supplements that make me realize how freakin' together my company is.

Take for instance this wonderful testimony for a new juice made by a local dietary supplement company:

“I was so impressed that the juice came in bottles. This alone is a symbol of quality!”
—Naomi Stone

So I have to ask:
  • What does juice normally come in where you're from?
  • How did you receive your juice previously? Did you have to go to the manufacturer and dip your thrice used cup into a bucket to get some? Did you have to suck it out of a pill perhaps? Did it come all dried up in the stained and torn envelope the company sent to you when you ordered it?
  • This is a symbol of quality? Really? A symbol?
So here are some things whose quality I have a testimony about:
  • Walmart's great products because they are actually in the store.
  • My car's great ability to hold gas.
  • My own quality of living in a house. The fact that I live in a house and not, say, the grassy field across the street is a symbol of my house's quality.
REALLY?!

The worst part of this quote is actually not the quote itself. It's that it's found on the company's website. This means that not only did some doofus say it, but somebody thought that it was a good quote and even further some other webdesigner/IT idiots didn't question it before adding it! (Perhaps they were ignored or maybe they just don't give a flyin' patootie.)

The other scenario is that Naomi actually said something else, but words were removed (or added - cause seriously, symbol?) during the review process and nobody bothered to read the end result. Apparently not even Naomi cause its on the web and she hasn't asked for it to be removed.

Naomi Stone - if you are googling your own name and come across this blog, please for the love of all that is holy ask that this quote be removed from that website! All of the Naomi Stones in the world are being mocked mercilessly for this and they are not amused.