Random Thoughts From Marybeth

That's Dumb

CNN Money has the 101 Dumbest Moments in Business for 2005. Below are some of my favorites:

16. A bad idea for an ad but I bet it would make a top selling poster - Mary Foerster, spokeswoman for Boeing Integrated Defense Systems says, "We consider the ad offensive, regret its publication, and apologize to those who, like us, are dismayed with its contents." about an ad in the Sept. 24 issue of National Journal that depicts the CV-22 Osprey in an assault on a mosque accompanied by copy that reads, "It descends from the heavens. Ironically it unleashes hell."

20. British regulators block an ad showing women drinking sparkling wine and trying to hook a good-looking man with a fishing pole because it associates drinking with sex. It's remade using a less attractive man. The girls all look prettier at closing time and the men all look better after a few glasses of wine.

20. WPP Group's worldwide creative director, Neil French, says there aren't more female creative directors "because they're crap" and they eventually "wimp out" and "go off and suckle something." He later resigns. It isn't so much his being an idiot that I found interesting but the Wikipedia entry list of his other career choices before he went into marketing: matador, pornographer, debt collector and as well as the agent of the heavy metal band Judas Priest.

34. A Wal-Mart ad asks, "Should we let government tell us what we can read? Of course not ... So why should we allow local government to limit where we shop?" The ad is illustrated with a vintage photo of Nazi supporters throwing books into a bonfire. Wal-Mart later apologizes, saying it had not appreciated the photo's "historical context." In spite of comparing the local government to Nazis, Wal-Mart is sitll vilified by many on the Left. There's just no pleasing some people.

43. Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy, "We're grabbing that word and saying, of anybody, we own the word 'share.'" And I guess these are part of his company's code of conduct.

53. I don't think that word means what you think it means. San Francisco radio station KYCY announces it's switching to an all Podcast format. The "podcasts" are to be broadcast over the airwaves but are not made available for downloading.

87. BBC television decides to do a documentary about Bob Marley and sends an email to the Bob Marley Foundation asking for an interview. Their previous documentary was about Queen. Something tells me that Freddie Mercury and Bob Marley were equally uncooperative about granting interviews.