Is A Flying Monkey With Lasers On Its Friggin' Head A Good Value For The Experience It Offers?

"It is considered a bit bizarre to have a meaningful relationship with an inanimate object." - Tree Stories

"Lovemarks." Dios mio, what a load of swill.

Saatchi & Saatchi's latest foray into the absurd starts out strong: "Brands have run out of juice." Ok, I can agree with that statement. However, that's where the agreement ends. Let's examine some tidbits from advertising's finest, shall we?

"A Lovemark’s high Love is infused with these three intangible, yet very real, ingredients: Mystery, Sensuality and Intimacy...Take a brand away and people will find a replacement. Take a Lovemark away and people will protest its absence. Lovemarks are a relationship, not a mere transaction. You don’t just buy Lovemarks, you embrace them passionately. That’s why you never want to let go."

Um, yeah. In other words, "how can we use advertising to manipulate consumers into 'loving' something that doesn't actually exist?"

Sorry, folks. Those days are done. No longer are consumers willing to be spoonfed, spun, and manipulated at your whim. Apple is held up as an example of a "Lovemark," yet the instant that it was learned that the iPod had a significantly battery flaw, customers were talking about it and doing something about it.

That being said, the Lovemarks site does have a bright side: the "Lovemarks Profiler." Through the Lovemarks Profiler, you can perform a self-assessment to determine your personal level of brainwashitude with respect to a particular product. I'm guessing that S&S assumed that people would use this capability to figure out how they felt about their brand of soap or something. However, one can take a slightly different approach.

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Once we decide what we want to test, the quiz comes up instantly.

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The Lovemarks lovefest is also taking place here, here, here and here.