Intern Sweatshop: Friday Ad Haiku: Desperate Food

Alright, so we keep our interns busy, but if you had interns as good as ours, you'd put them to work too. Tomorrow, I'm getting my car detailed. So don't judge us. Just enjoy. Now excuse us, it's noon and our interns are taking us out for beers. After all it is Friday. Here's yet another edition of our 938-part series: The Intern Sweatshop.--Captain Awesome.

I think it was during the Atkins diet craze that I saw a bottle of water that had “CARB-FREE!” emblazoned on the side. Staring and smiling, I realized, even at my tender young age, that “____-free!” claims on food items were riding the coattails of popular diets hard. Water, of course, has always been carb-free. Chocolate syrup has always been low-fat, but it only started claiming that fact during the "FAT IS BAD" craze. But the eye-catching starburst catches the twitchy attention of the desperate dieter searching for anything that could wiggle in under his particular food restriction--and voila! A potentially ignored purchase is made.

A more deceptive ploy is the “Made with real _____!” claim. Technically, a smooch of 100% cheese lightly dusted on a thumb and then pressed gently against the advertised cracker validates that claim. The bigger the claim looks on the box, though, the more a Cheez-It sounds like a slice of fresh cheese, and the healthier a loaf of bread "made with whole grain wheat" sounds.

So the moral of this is: food wants to be eaten, regardless of your darn diet--and you will be trapped into eating it.


On that note, Your Friday Ad haiku: A Dieter's Epiphany:

On low-carb diet.
Ugh. Hungry, hungry, hungry—
CHILDREN ARE CARB-FREE!



- Hannah Cheng, Hungry Creative Department Intern

Previously in the Friday 5-7-5: The Writer's Hangover

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Friday Ad Haiku: Spec Work

(via)

I suppose every industry, in one way or another, gives a little sumthin'-sumthin' away for free to wet a client's whistle. Ice cream parlors divvy out the tiny spoons to taste test the newest flavors. Flooring companies give away free swatches of Berber to color coordinate. Hell, even the corner boys give away testers of H to drum up buzz amongst the junkerati.

But our freebies aren't like others' freebies. They're not as simple as handing out a sample to help people figure out if the carpet matches the drapes. We don't dip our hands into an ice cream freezer to pull out comps for a broadcast campaign. We've gotta make it on demand.

What a business: we work for the opportunity to work for money. While it's no big deal to the food court hustler pimping bourbon chicken samples whether you eat at their place or out of an ashtray by the GAP, it makes all the difference in the world for us. Because free, ain't easy. And the truth is, no matter how good your work is (or you think it is), no matter how much of yourself you've invested into a free sample, there are no guarantees. Them's the odds, friends. Especially in an economy that's sucking sand.

So we keep doing it. Because that's the price to play in this competitive climate. And because, deep down, we secretly love the chase.


The first one's free. But
the second'll cost ya. Just
kiddin'. That's free too.

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