You have Gott to be kidding.
EDIT: Now with picture.
One of the surprisingly entertaining facets working in a store are the semi-random discoveries of promotional materials from companies hoping to squeeze into another inventory. Sometimes the level of polish to their sample pack or catalog can be matched or exceeded with a simple trip to a neighborhood Xerox machine, a couple notes jotted down in ball-point, and stuffing it all into an old shoe box. Flipping through such parcels is like being able to investigate a train wreck at leisure. If a manufacturer cannot be bothered to at least make their materials look neat and professional, it doesn't portend good things about either their products or their ability to get those products to our shelves. Much more common are the brightly colored, glossy catalogs and fliers festooned with artistic camera angles of their merchandise and/or scantily clad bodies. Trying to capture a vender's interest is a cut-throat business and some of their "presentations-in-a-box" are as highly honed and gleaming as a custom race-car.
It is however, the mishap or overlooked details that are truly rewarding. Keen indeed are the eyes of the retail buyer for those little elements of chaos that eluded the gaze of the editor prior to going into full production. Such discoveries will course through the employee grape-vine at relativistic speeds and usually gales of laughter and exclamations of faux-disbelief.
I happened upon one not too long ago that left me blinking in utter bafflement as to how it ever left the drawing board. I'll have to see if I can manage to snap a picture of it to post with this entry because it's just that fucking disturbing.
The item in question is a rectangular tin not at all dissimilar to the variety employed to hold very strong mints or sour fruit candies. A label dominates the top of the hinged lid. The over-all color scheme would best be summed up as grey-scale with red accents. Almost centered on that label and surrounded by the text to let it serve as the primary eye-catching element is a double lightning bolt. Blocky, "S"-shaped lightning bolts to be exact.
Now why would that emblem seem familiar to me? Maybe because it's one of the most recognizable devices used by the bloody Waffen-SS!
Sure, it's just an oversight and the color scheme is entirely coincidental. Next you'll tell me the revised packaging with a deaths head is meant to tie into the current popularity of pirates. I hope whoever is responsible for this item arriving at my desk has been subsequently beaten to death with a history book so that perhaps some fleeting comprehension of past events might lodge within their shattered skull for the first time in their life.
Thank you for your interest, but I think we'll reserve our interest for companies that aren't staffed entirely by hill people who haven't seen or known about the world since before the 1920's.
One of the surprisingly entertaining facets working in a store are the semi-random discoveries of promotional materials from companies hoping to squeeze into another inventory. Sometimes the level of polish to their sample pack or catalog can be matched or exceeded with a simple trip to a neighborhood Xerox machine, a couple notes jotted down in ball-point, and stuffing it all into an old shoe box. Flipping through such parcels is like being able to investigate a train wreck at leisure. If a manufacturer cannot be bothered to at least make their materials look neat and professional, it doesn't portend good things about either their products or their ability to get those products to our shelves. Much more common are the brightly colored, glossy catalogs and fliers festooned with artistic camera angles of their merchandise and/or scantily clad bodies. Trying to capture a vender's interest is a cut-throat business and some of their "presentations-in-a-box" are as highly honed and gleaming as a custom race-car.
It is however, the mishap or overlooked details that are truly rewarding. Keen indeed are the eyes of the retail buyer for those little elements of chaos that eluded the gaze of the editor prior to going into full production. Such discoveries will course through the employee grape-vine at relativistic speeds and usually gales of laughter and exclamations of faux-disbelief.
I happened upon one not too long ago that left me blinking in utter bafflement as to how it ever left the drawing board. I'll have to see if I can manage to snap a picture of it to post with this entry because it's just that fucking disturbing.
The item in question is a rectangular tin not at all dissimilar to the variety employed to hold very strong mints or sour fruit candies. A label dominates the top of the hinged lid. The over-all color scheme would best be summed up as grey-scale with red accents. Almost centered on that label and surrounded by the text to let it serve as the primary eye-catching element is a double lightning bolt. Blocky, "S"-shaped lightning bolts to be exact.
Now why would that emblem seem familiar to me? Maybe because it's one of the most recognizable devices used by the bloody Waffen-SS!
Sure, it's just an oversight and the color scheme is entirely coincidental. Next you'll tell me the revised packaging with a deaths head is meant to tie into the current popularity of pirates. I hope whoever is responsible for this item arriving at my desk has been subsequently beaten to death with a history book so that perhaps some fleeting comprehension of past events might lodge within their shattered skull for the first time in their life.
Thank you for your interest, but I think we'll reserve our interest for companies that aren't staffed entirely by hill people who haven't seen or known about the world since before the 1920's.
posted by Lanius at 8:28 PM
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