New yorker subscription rip-off

What kind of fools do they think we are?

Last week, our household received a renewal form from The New Yorker blithely requesting $59.95 for a one-year renewal. Maybe you got one yourself.

Should you mail it in? Not if you have half a brain.

Anyone can get it for $39.95 through Amazon. Or for the same price (with free T-shirt) from Conde Nast's own website.*

(Albeit the latter adds its own scam via a "with automatic renewal" bait-and-switch tactic.)

What a rip-off!

Why would any company want to treat its best customers, those who already subscribe, so shabbily? You invite them into your home and they want to steal your silverware.

It passeth all understanding. Clearly the strategy is set by professional theives or thimble-brained MBA twits. Care to vote on which is to blame?

I won't talk here about the "doctor's rate" deals, which call for another post by themselves.

The hottest part of hell

To me, the hottest fires of hell will be occupied by

1. people who abuse animals
2. anyone who rips off senior citizens
3. flimflam "charities"

The latter is characterized by scam charities that spend more fund-raising than they give to their purported beneficiaries. Many of these are flat-out bunco operations run by the slimiest of all slimeballs.

They prey on the generosity of well-meaning individuals, many of which are themselves not flush with cash.

And of course many of you will recall the repugnant Jim and Tammy Baker who bilked viewers of millions of dollars. It's a travesty that Baker served only a short jail term.

StarKist: one of the year's dumbest ad campaigns

For almost fifty years, StarKist tuna was represented by the "Charlie the Tuna" commercials.

Granted, they were corny, but mostly pleasant. And they built cumulative brand equity. It's the kind of iconic stuff that Leo Burnett advertising specialized in, like their creations for Green Giant, Marlboro, and the like.

So I was astounded to see a new campaign featuring goofy people making fish-faces. This is very entertaining when you're about three years old, but for anyone who doesn't drool, it is so irritating that one instinctively grabs for the remote.

I imagined Leo Burnett spinning in his grave. But it took about two minutes Googling to find out this client has a new agency in Boston that I'd never heard of.

I suppose I should give this agency credit for its apparent policy of hiring half-wits to work in the creative department. But that's more praise than they deserve.

These are what I call "one-time commercials." That means spots that may seem novel when presented to the client, but are boring or repellent the second time you see them.

Alas, with the declining state of advertising creative and lack of adult supervision, this kind of drivel is becoming all too common in the biz.

If commercials are merely boring or stupid, I rarely have to endure them a second time. (This is why God invented the DVR.)

But when they rise —or more properly sink— to the level of major irritants, I am impelled to active hatred. That means writing down the product name on the BANNED category in the shopping list on the refrigerator door.

Thus, Chicken of the Sea (or any brand other than StarKist) will henceforth get my purchasing dollars, just by default.

So there you have it: fifty years of brand equity, totally squandered by one idiotic campaign.

That's quite an accomplishment.

Perhaps they'll invent an awards category for this.