Unexpectedness

I know this “Doghouse” campaign is supposed to be funny, in that Bud-Light Man-Humor kind of way, but it’s hard to escape the ickiness of the core message: When you do something really bad that makes your wife furious at you, buy her a diamond and it’s all good.

Nor does this interpretation involve a deep-feminist critique of the text. No, in fact, here’s what it says on the site: “Here are three perfect diamond gifts that are essentially ‘get out of the doghouse free’ cards.”

You wonder whether the whole concept would seem as cute if the message were slightly revised to read: Next time you do something harmful to your relationship, just write your wife a check for $500 and watch her grateful little eyes light up!

Do healthy-sounding terms such as “organic” or “trans-fat-free” seduce us into eating more than we would otherwise? (I.e., do we feel virtuous eating our “trans-fat-free” french fries and conclude that we’ve earned a cookie?) John Tierney has a great piece exploring the phenomenon. From the article:

Experiments showed that putting a “low fat” label on food caused everyone, especially overweight people, to underestimate its calories, to eat bigger helpings and to indulge in other foods.

The researchers found that customers at McDonald’s were more accurate at estimating the calories in their meal than were customers at Subway, apparently because of the health halo created by advertisements like one showing that a Subway sandwich had a third the fat of a Big Mac. The health halo from Subway also affected what else people chose to eat, Dr. Chandon and Dr. Wansink reported last year after giving people a chance to order either a Big Mac or a 12-inch Italian sandwich from Subway. Even though the Subway sandwich had more calories than the Big Mac, the people ordering it were more likely to add a large nondiet soda and cookies to the order. So while they may have felt virtuous, they ended up with meals averaging 56 percent more calories than the meals ordered from McDonald’s.

“People who eat at McDonald’s know their sins,” Dr. Chandon said, “but people at Subway think that a 1,000-calorie sandwich has only 500 calories.” His advice is not for people to avoid Subway or low-fat snacks, but to take health halos into account.

John Moore at Brand Autopsy highlights this satirical video, created by a church marketing expert to inspire churches to find ways that “we can remove the speed-bumps we have unknowingly created for visitors.”

My favorite part: The barrista waits on a couple that is clearly new to Starbucks — they’re a bit overwhelmed and end up asking sheepishly for “a coffee.” Then, the barrista grabs a mike and, in front of everyone in the store, announces, “If this is your first time visiting with us, will you go ahead and raise your hands — we would love to welcome you.” The mortified pair raise their hands.

Someone in the background shouts “Java-lujah!”

I could not resist clicking on this headline.

“Airwaves Battle Pits Dolly Parton Against Google”

My compliments to the headline writer.

As reported by Duncan Mansfield, a Knoxvillian named Rob Simpson was indignant when he heard that the cost of war in Iraq had hit $1 trillion. So he spent a year of his life putting that cost in perspective in a book called What We Could Have Done With the Money: 50 Ways To Spend the Trillion Dollars We’ve Spent on Iraq.

From the Mansfield piece: “He calculates $1 trillion could pave the entire U.S. interstate highway system with gold – 23.5-karat gold leaf. It could buy every person on the planet an iPod. It could give every high school student in America a free college education. It could pay off every American’s credit card. It could buy a Buick for every senior citizen still driving in America.”

The author’s web site also has had a nifty “shopping spree” tool where you can could buy things like Lear Jets, the New York Yankees, Picasso paintings, etc, in a vain attempt to reach $1T.