Wednesday, March 31

Inaccurate History in Copywriting, Part 43

"Dude, I'm smokin' through this ad copy"

Revue Retro 210 Eyeglasses

Model: 210

Product ID: 4071250002450732c199

Description:

It was the late 1970's and Andy Warhol dominated the New York art scene. Millions were learning the "twist" from James Brown. These vintage glasses were all the rage in that era, with the thick, cartoon-like rims.

I have no idea what era they're supposed to be talking about here, unless this is on some alternate Earth. I won't even do a point-by-point on this because just about every 'fact' is wrong. Yikes!

Here's another one that I found in my kitchen, courtesy of Morton Salt:

Morton Salt Umbrella Girl 1933
1933
In the post-Depression years from 1933 to 1941, jazz was king. And as it reigned, our little girl kept pouring.

I think a lot of people would have liked to have known the depression was over in 1933! It would have saved them a lot of trouble with joblessness and hunger. Also, saying "Jazz is King" has a distinctly 'roaring twenties', Gatsby-esque tone.

Poorly-written copy and wrong history are two of my big pet peeves (out of many), so these blurbs really get my goat.

2 comments:

  1. Wow, those really reek!

    Of course, I already knew about the inaccurate Morton Salt copy since that was a topic discusssed at length, and with a great deal of outrage, in our house not too long ago. ;)

    I like your photo of the dunce--it's funny--but when I picture sloppy copyrighters getting all their history wrong, I always picture some little 22-year-old punk with no sense of the past. Maybe that's not fair. There are plenty of dopey old people too!

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  2. Well, it was a good dunce cap photo. But here's an alternate:
    http://s3.images.com/huge.94.470892.JPG

    Or maybe it was this guy:
    http://blogs.knoxnews.com/photo/Adam%20the%20intern.jpg

    ReplyDelete

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