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29 Dastardly Marketing Schemes That Bore Their Way Into Your Brain

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29 Dastardly Marketing Schemes That Bore Their Way Into Your Brain

June 22, 2024

Marketing campaigns are like an onslaught of malicious little brain worms. If a company spends enough money, they can make sure that one of their hungry little worms makes its way into your noggin. Here are a few that have probably already been munching on your grey matter…

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29

Coffee Breaks coffee break CRACKED.COM The coffee break was technically invented by defense plants during World War II be- cause if their workers didn't stay alert, planes fell apart and stuff. What other in- dustries' workers were doing during their breaks is anyone's guess (definitely mas- turbating), but it didn't become wide- spread and wasn't even called a coffee break until it reached the ears of the Pan American Coffee Bureau in 1952, when their launched their Give Yourself a Cof- fee-Break campaign to take advantage of the opportunity to sell more coffee. By the end of the year, 80% — Source

28

Orange Juice CRACKED.COM In the 19th century, citrus fruits were so expensive to produce and transport that most people couldn't afford them, let alone throw most of it away and only drink the juice. Then the U.S. yo- inked Californía and started planting the shit out of some orange trees, real- izing too late that they had way too many orange trees, so citrus titan Sunk- ist started pushing orange juice as the breakfast beverage of champions and all but pleading consumers to help them get rid of some of these oranges. — Source

27

Santa Claus 015 re 04-6466131 Coca-Cola Merry Christmas Coca-Cola ca-Cola Coca-Ca المياة أحلى مع CRACKED G COM Of course, Santa as we know him wasn't popularized until 1931, when Coca-Cola unveiled its latest holiday campaign fea- turing the red-coated, red-nosed, huh, suspiciously red-focused Santa of the modern era, inspired by the description in Twas the Night Before Christmas. Before then, Santa was depicted as ev- erything from a tiny elf to the actual bishop named Saint Nicholas. You might instead like to celebrate Santa as a Vi- king god with blue or brown robes who rides an eight-legged horse and doles out — Source

26

Christmas Lights GRACKED.COM People used to light their dry-ass Christ- mas trees with actual candles, which was obviously super dangerous, but they weren't gonna just not risk a fiery death when holiday cheer was on the line. The first electric Christmas lights were strung up by Thomas Edison around his New Jer- sey laboratory in 1880 to show people how cool electricity was. Two years later, one of his workers put the lights on an actúal tree in a window on the busy Manhattan street where he lived, and that's why you have to wrestle with a tangled mess once — Source

25

Spoilers GRAGKED.COM Nobody really cared about spoiling the plot of a movie or book until the 1960 release of Psycho, when Alfred Hitchcock went around buying every copy of the novel the movie was based on that he could find and promotional materials encouraged audiences not to tell their friends what happens. Hitch- cock may have truly believed going in blind was the best way to experience the movie, but the mystery he created sure helped to sell a lot of tickets. — Source

24

Ten Commandments Monuments the Ten Commandments 1 AM theLORD 1bg God Thee stati hase other gods before DE Thou shall not make N thgisell you grases Images Thes shall ml The et the Lare - God in sale Remember the + um E kolo Sepor IN Jather and the author as dig the days BAU by long work DE lend und Lord the Gol glocal det Thou state Day - Three - 603 annit Thre stats the START Thee الحمد por tree Jelso unness apainst 199 nrighter Thes shalt PET can no seighbor's NHGS Thos the 150 do - — Source

23

The Olympic Torch CRACKED.COM The Olympic flame has always been a part of the festivities, but the idea of carrying it from Greece to the site of the games was invented by Nazi Ger- many for the 1936 Berlin games. The thinking behind it was pretty nebu- lous, but basically, they wanted to at- tract tourists, convince them that Nazi Germany was cool, and generally nor- malize torch-wielding Nazis. — Source

22

The Miss America Pageant CRACKED.COM Believe it or not, New Jersey hasn't always been an enthusias- tic supporter of young women's excellence. The Miss America pageant began in 1921 as a swim- suit competition to lure tourists back to Atlantic City once sum- mer was over in the time-hon- ored marketing tradition of boobs. — Source

21

Herpes Stigma CRACKED.COM Most people have some type of herpes virus, so before the '80s, no one really cared if it was on your face or your junk. Arguably, the former is worse be- cause everyone can see it, but it was so normalized that even that didn't matter until the creators of a herpes medica- tion called Zovirax started telling the public there was a difference between cold sores (fine and normal) and gen- ital herpes (a dreadful pox that should confine you to a colony of some sort) because no one would buy their stuff otherwise. — Source

20

Wedding Registries GRAGKED.COM By the 1920s, the ancient practice of showering newlyweds with weird sym- bolic gifts had mostly died out, and only their closest friends and family were expected to do anything more than party their faces off. That didn't suit department store Marshall Fields, who invented the wedding registry in 1924 to sell more merchandise under the guise of providing the couple with everything they need to start their new life (except any kind of useful sex edu- cation). — Source

19

Father's Day DAD CRACKED.COM By the time Father's Day became a national holiday in 1972, Sonora Smart Dodd had been campaigning for it for some time, because why should moms get all the fun? She didn't succeed, however, until she appealed to the Associated Men's Wear Retailers, who established a whole council to promote the holi- day. That's right: Father's Day was established to sell ties. — Source

18

Diamond Engagement Rings CRACKED.COM These days, asking someone to marry you without the presentation of a little velvet box is a good way to get a no, you cheapass, but few people ex- changed engagement rings at all be- fore the 1930s, and even fewer of those rings contained diamonds. That was around the time the De Beers company came into a massive glut of diamonds and, to avoid crashing prices, con- vinced the public via a massive market- ing campaign that you didn't really love someone unless you put the product of horrific mining practices on their finger. — Source

17

Shaving CRACKED.COM The idea that hair is only desirable on some parts of a woman's body and not others can be traced back to about 1915, before which not much of their non-face parts were even seen in pub- lic, so no one cared. Then, the skimpier fashions of the flapper era gave Gillette the idea to convince women that armpit and leg hair is gross, actually, and they just so happened to have the product to fix it. — Source

16

Bacon CRACKED CON Remember back in the 2000s, when everything from chewing gum to lube came in bacon? It was a confusing and chaotic time, and it was all because the health craze of the '80s plummeted pork sales, so executives crafted a backlash as a way to, again, sell more ba- con. You'd think salty fat wouldn't be so hard to sell, but here we are. — Source

15

The American Breakfast THIS IS WHAT BEIN LOVE REALLY BECAUSE SEX GRACKED.COM Picture a classic American breakfast: a smor- gasbord of eggs, meat, at least one kind of fried potatoes, and cake for some reason. This was totally unrecognizable as breakfast to Americans before the 1920s, who largely just ate a slice of toast and a cup of coffee in the morning, until Edward Bernays, a PR maverick who happened to be Sígmund Freud's nephew, was tasked by a client to sell more bacon. Не went around to a bunch of doctors, needled them with questions like People should eat — Source

14

CRACKED.COM The Gruen Transfer A manipulative technique that makes a shopper more susceptable to unplanned purchases through intentionally confusing shop/mall design. — Source

13

Marketing experts disguise data-gathering into a fun quiz or game. WHICH BREED DoG OF ARE YOU? That way, they don't have to search for participants, they get them to willingly come to them. CRACKED.COM — Source

12

CRACKED.COM Increasing the price of a product can increase its sales. $ $$$ When a customer is choosing between products they are unfamiliar with, they will often assume that the higher priced product must be of better quality, even if it's not. — Source

11

Coolhunting is a marketing technique that picks out the popular kids and interviews them, to predict trends. In addition to hidden-camera focus group interviews, Researchers will also recruit cool narcs to secretly observe and report on their peers. CRACKED.COM — Source

10

Have you ever been outraged at an advert that makes you go; How did this sh*t get past the editor?! This is a marketing technique known as Shock Advertising. In most cases, this is done intentionally to rile emotions because whatever goes against a society's accepted norms is usually more memorable, and the backlash is knowingly expected. CRACKED.COM — Source

9

In their TV ads, Hollywood studios like showing fans falling all over themselves to praise a movie. waking neD Devine Sometimes, the fans are studio employees. For example, an ad for Fox Searchlight's movie Waking Ned Devine featured Caren Lipson (an executive assistant at Fox) as an ordinary person on the street posing with her date and saying the movie is Hysterical! CRACKED.COM — Source

8

GRAGKED.COM TIME pricing Decoy .... ENDI A - and - . CH A tactic that 20 increases the sales of 100 CI ES I OOL : high-profit items by creating another mid-range version solely to make the I pricier version seem economical by comparison. $3 $5 $5.10 — Source

7

Troll marketing is when brands shame their own GRAGKED.COM customers on social media or in ads. For instance, they may make a sarcastic statement based on behind-the-scenes data. It draws criticism, but can also result in high engagement. 2018 Goals Deliver burns as well as the person who streamed Bad Liar 86 times the day Sean Spicer resigned. — Source

6

BREITLING A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES FIJI 1954 JAIN DANITS 25 HOUSE Budweiser of CARDS H CRACKED.COM AVAYA CASIO SAMSUNG BlackBerry CNN DELL STELLA ARTOIS Product placement where brands pay for screen-time is big business. So much so that House of Cards was rebranded House of Product Placement by the LA Times back in 2013 for the huge amount of screen-time that brands paid for. In 2012 the global spend on product placement was $8.25bn. — Source

5

adidas ن Have You Ever Talked UNITED About Something With A Friend And The Next Day P FL A TERMS You See an An PURT Ad About It? AN Millions of EX DE GET UP TO $600 PLUS Illustrations 60 DAYS COMMISSION- The Galicia You Won't FREE TRADES Find Elsewhere CEFR BOX iStock LEARN MO from India W The This Amazon ONE PRICE MINO CHECK Time prosers SHOP GIFTS UNDER 150 Turns Out, TEST Certain Apps your Have Been CHOCOLATE Using Your An you comfortable и your refrement Microphone In - - حمد DE - . - - Peter - - — Source

4

More and more, music artists are writing new songs just for brands. Wiz Khalifa and his son dunking Oreos in the Playful 4 Life music video For example, Kelly Rowland made Crown for Dove, Wiz Khalifa made Playful 4 Life for Oreo, 2 Chainz made Expensify This for Expensify, and Bebe Rexha made Right Here, Right Now for Lay's. These companies built whole musical branding campaigns that heavily revolved around these songs. CRACKED.COM — Source

3

Brands are exploiting internet outrage, creating mini-backlashes for marketing. For instance, using inflammatory words like kill is more likely to spark a conversation than typical advertising terms. NO ONE IS HAPPY ALL THE TIME STLAND MADA P W PIGHT . и MEAL TAKE - SALTY MEAL SGAP MEAL It's risky if not done right, but worth a shot to get attention and engagement. CRACKED CON — Source

2

Love bidding in online auctions? Careful not to fall prey to shill bidders. BID BID BID BID Shady online sellers will use another account to bid on their own auctioned items to raise the prices artificially. CRACKED.COM — Source

1

Neuromarketing, a growing trend, involves observing how people's brain activity responds to products. It's as creepy as you think: companies hook consumers up to EEG or fMRI machines. It's used by big companies including Gerber, Frito-Lay, Campbell's Soup, PayPal, and Hyundai. For example, Frito-Lay changed its packaging from shiny to matte after seeing negative reactions to shiny packaging in consumers' neural patterns. CRACKED.COM — Source

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