The right celebrity endorsement can make a good product exponentially better. Sure, we like Hot Pockets as much as the next starving guy well below the poverty line, but put Hulk Hogan's face on them? Now you're talking, buddy! Get your hands off our Hulk Pockets, or feel the pain, brother! [via cracked]
Some celebrities, however, drastically misjudge their demographic and we wind up with releases of classical Renaissance ballads as sung by Brock Lesnar or a line of fur coats sponsored by Moby.
By now we expect rappers to expand their brands: Energy drinks, clothing lines, hot dogs (finally all of America can put a Snoop Dogg in their mouth) but discount bundled family vacation packages to Tampa with air and hotel included do not fit the classical definition of "gangsta." But hey, it's Kayne West, we're talking about here. He never truly marketed himself as a "hardcore" rapper, he's most famous for his hedonism and that might translate to vacations. If it's done by Kanye West, this travel website's got to be deluxe: All done up in red leather and auto-tuned out the butt, right?
Not so much, no. Kanye Travel features a giant flash animation of some kind of rap-based satellite orbiting the Earth. If you hover your mouse over it, you can make it dance!
"If they can do this, surely they can book my vacation!"
And then if you click it, well, nothing happens. The site is sporting a plethora of buttons, most of which don't work, but maybe that's a statement: This site is so rich it's got buttons that don't even go nowhere! Kanye's makin' it rain buttons, yo!
But the weirdest part is that, aside from his name upfront, there is no sign of Kanye anywhere. If there's one thing Kanye is all about, it's Kanye, and not a trace of him anywhere. No "Kanye Krazy Savers," no travel tips on which cities have the best butts, not even a spinning Kanye head placeholder while the page loads. This appears to be a no-frills discount travel website built in all earnestness. Kanye West started a travel website because he is passionate about deals. Seriously, according to press releases proudly exclaiming the amount of work Kanye and his business partners did to secure deals with airline, hotel and car rental concerns to offer the best travel deals:
"Miki Woodard, president of the [Kanye West's] company, West Brands, told Advertising Age the process has already taken nearly a year. We did a lot of due diligence with online travel partners."
Kanye's true passion in life apparently isn't angsty half-rap about how you should learn to appreciate his awesomeness more completely, it's negotiating 30 percent discounts on Economy Suites in South Dakota.
Smell is our most evocative sense: It creates lasting memories, makes the strongest impressions and even dictates our mating preferences. In essence, the way we smell tells others who we are. So why not tell others you're a shapeless blob only suitable for pre-verbal children, a human punching bag or a limp piece of greasy meat with the Play-Doh, Everlast and Burger King perfume lines? These aren't just wacky names, either: BK's body spray "Flame" smells literally like a Whopper, which is perfect for the guy trying to attract women who eat hamburgers. And Play-Doh perfume smells exactly like the toy, perfect for the gal out to net that hard-to-get closeted-pedophile guy.
Everlast actually smells like what? Sweat and fists? What is even the goal here, guys?
Or perhaps you'd rather spritz on a liberal (or conservative) sheen of Republican Fragrance and let the reassuring aroma of deep rooted patriotism do the rest. Evidently the smell of family values is apple, tangerine, grapefruit, lemon and orange, because in the end, isn't the "real America" best exemplified by a fruit salad? Although we've got to admit it's a lot better than the Democrat and Independent fragrances, which smell like booze and Lou Dobbs, respectively.
Hey, remember baby food? Man, that stuff was great! Why the hell did you stop eating that once you got teeth? If you can't think of a reason, then you just might be A) the core demographic for Gerber Singles, an adult-marketed mush of single-serving jarred food analogues, or B) Just a little bit slow.
Released in 1974, Gerber Singles sported flavors like Pureed Mediterranean Vegetables, Beef Burgundy, Blueberry Delight and Creamed Beef. Say what you will about them, but Gerber doesn't half-ass anything. Did they go out and test the waters for an entirely new genre of food product by easing into it and releasing logical liquid flavors first, like Flan or Pea Soup? No! Not one, but two gelatinous beef dishes in a line-up of five. With 40 percent of the launch line-up being composed of runoff from the slaughterhouse floor, and a name that basically called you lonely on the label, Gerber Singles quickly flopped and stuck with their traditional market: babies. Stupid, stupid babies who have to eat whatever you shove in their mouths.
What better way to impress your house-guests than with a perfectly chosen wine? A Mondavi Pinot Noir? A Trimbach Riesling? How about an Achmed Syrah, named after the racist puppet of a hack redneck comedian? Or perhaps one of Gordon's Pinots--that's Jeff, mind you, the NASCAR driver.
Presumably fermented in only the finest of bathtubs and engine blocks, Jeff Dunham and Jeff Gordon wines are amongst the finest beverages for only the most sophisticated illiterate truck-drivers. While Dunham went into the business when he "saw a winery named Dunham, and figured [he] should own it," (presumably this statement was followed by a 20 minute spoon-solo and impromptu hoedown), Jeff Gordon claims he developed his knowledge and passion for wine while driving past vineyards as a child. You know, like how you learned open heart surgery from driving past hospitals as a kid?
While you'd think a Girls Gone Wild apparel line would consist solely of the tear-away or crotch-less variety, the catalog is surprisingly filled with options a respectable skank could legally wear into a 7-11.
Also a full line of tasteful pants for amputees.
Long-sleeve shirts, sweatpants, leggings -- you can buy all manner of items intended to cover everything stamped with the official logo of of the man who's committed several crimes trying to get them bared.
But don't feel left out, fellas: GGW offers hats, shorts and T-shirts that will let the whole world know "I'm down with pornography with minors and adults who are unaware of being filmed and/or too inebriated for proper decision making," well before you make your court-appointed stop at your neighbors' doorstep to tell them in person.
Ladies, do you have breasts? Do those breasts frequently burst into flames? Well then the Evian Water Bra is for you! Meant to "cool humid breasts," Evian is actively pursuing that valuable market of swamp-dwelling, giant-breasted she-moguls. If you were a bottled water company, what might you branch off into? Home purifiers? Flavored beverages? Swimwear?
Nope! Climate controlled boob-harnesses, all the way.
But hey, they're providing a valuable service here: No longer will your fiery bosoms immolate you, your loved ones and all those around you. Not as long as you simply fill the Evian Water Bra with as much cool, delicious Evian Water as is necessary to cool the heat of the thousand suns that dwells within your mammaries. Fret no more!
Well, we suppose you could just fill an Evian Water Bra with tap water, denying your breasts the expensive but pure, crisp, delicious taste in favor of slathering them in foul peasant water, but why would you? After all, what good is a cool breast, if it must come at the expense of refreshment?
The Street: A place where life can be bought with a handful of bullets. The only way to live is to live hard, and your rep is your only shield. Street-cred is the difference between standing your ground and laying dead in the street. And what says both that you are not a man to be messed with--and that you understand black culture because you have lived the life--better than children's cereal?
Kellogg's "Under the Hood" urban wear lets everybody know that this hood is Tony the Tiger's turf, and if you step up you're likely to get a cap Snap, Crackle and Popped in your behind.
Though you undoubtedly look tough in your Honey Smacks low-riders, perhaps emblazoning the words "Dig'em" across your butt-cheeks sends the wrong message, suggesting less that you're a "hard-butt, big-ballin' gangsta" and more that you're, well... no, that's pretty apt, actually.
And that's not one isolated product and an unfortunate photo shoot: They really went full-bore trying to convince wannabe thugs to replace the gun and pot leaf patches on their butt with colorful parrots and suggestions that they like to be "frosted:"
Full Disclosure: Now that you're through laughing, you should know that all photo models pictured died mysteriously after repeatedly falling on moving bullets. Don't you feel bad?
No?
All right, back to laughing:
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