Distractible - Criminally Subliminal

Episode Date: February 28, 2022

Love them or hate them, we live in a world of advertisements. Today the guys discuss nostalgic commercials, the psychology behind ads, and how they approach recording their own. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Find Secret at your nearest Walmart or Shoppers Drug Mart today. Good evening, gentle listener, and welcome to Distractible, a Wood Elf production with your hosts, Bewildered Bob, Wakeful Wade, and Mesmerizing Mark. This week, the elite of engagement enunciate over the exacting inflates of ads and enchantment surreptitiously scattered about our media. Yes, it's time for Criminally Subliminal. Please prepare thy pause button and enjoy the show. Hey everybody, welcome back to Distractible.

I'm your host today, Wade Barnes, your winner, your champion. What a legitimate win it was. That's real good. A win to remember. You earned it, man. A win to never forget. From one of the best episodes we've ever done. Thank you, Bob. The golden episode that that was. Fine, I'm going to redeem myself today. It's fine. This is fine. Okay. We'll find out. How are you guys doing? Pretty good. Busy morning. Very productive, efficient.

Pretty happy with how today went. I'm good too. I sat on the couch until this and I scrolled on TikTok and also productive, very productive morning. And now I'm ready for this, you know, prepared. Excellent. All right. I talked about this a few weeks ago, but I'm going to mention it again now.

After... Oh, never mind, cut this out, because I'm completely wrong about what the hell I'm talking about. That might be a distractible record for fastest turnaround. Listen, I've had a lot of water today. I'm swinging off the chandeliers. I'm a little in watercaded. Yeah, no, things are good. Oh, I've had a lot of water today. I'm swinging off the chandeliers. I'm a little in watercaded. Yeah, no, things are good.

Oh, I do have news to interrupt your goodness. Oh, go ahead. I have news. More distractible animators are on the way. If you are listening to this and you enjoy animations of our podcast here, they will be coming out shortly. our podcast here they will be coming out shortly if you did not know there's one already that's on my channel and we have a distractible youtube channel where you will find these lovely animations in the future youtube.com distractible podcast yes i think i'm yeah that's it i know that i know that one okay okay we have merch too and uh we've got new merch hopefully rolling in it's been rolled

in so on and so forth so you guys should check the merch store daily man we are plugging a lot right off the bat people are tuning out oh well never mind don't check the merch don't do any of that i lied don't check it forget about it listen to us just listen to this episode just do the episode yeah do all right all right uh let me check my notes today's episode definitely a real banger for our average listener uh uh advertising oh yeah you guys you know it you love it you want more of it today's episode is sponsored by us we are advertising ourselves uh what a fitting plug i do not get enough ads in my everyday life give me more well that's the point right like we advertise ourselves our own stuff we have our own set of sponsors we do our own brand deals and collaborations and things and uh we also have to consume a lot of other

advertising and advertising is kind of like the silent killer why is it the silent killer what's what's it doing to me what's it doing yeah that's right come on an 11 o'clock news anchor tell me how advertising's killing my family well you gotta tune in at 11 o'clock to find out. This was just a tease. I thought I was watching the news. This is just a commercial? Oh, wow. Oh, this has just been an ad the whole time.

This is just advertising. God damn it. Man, we're getting got in so many ways, we don't even understand it. What a nefarious adversary. I know. Three points to both of you for getting got so hey that's not so bad yeah that feels good it's like a reward system for ads you know you you listen to an ad you get points i guess the topic of advertising by itself is kind of like just open and you know you can

kind of talk about whatever part of it you want but the fact of the matter is we live with a lot of advertising all over the place all the time some of it's effective some of it just annoys us some of it we just tune out but like it or not ads are here to stay and i guess we're gonna talk about our opinions on it or memorable ads or ads we wish we didn't remember so on and so forth so um i don't know what part of advertising do you guys want to approach i have a story i'd like to talk about all right by all means um this is not my own story this is a thing from the world i guess so i don't really have a fancy title for it or anything but did you guys see this i don't

know how much you're on tiktok i scroll tiktok a fair amount most of it's garbage but i scroll until i see a dog or something i'm interested in but i found this thing on tiktok uh a guy who has an account his name is kyle sheely or sheel something like that i posted a thing which was just like he's like kind of a comedy variety type content creator and he posted a video where he was like i've got this idea i think if i make a cardboard cutout of myself you know like a stand-up cutout of me with like a slogan on it that's just like the kyle sheely meal or whatever like get that made and put it in this gas station sure um no one will notice i'll walk in and i'll talk to the person and be like hey i just sent up this

thing from corporate or whatever and no one will question it let me see how long i can put it in there and it was posted with uh as just like his idea for a joke right so he he does this he goes into it's a come and go gas station best gas station name by the way come and go k-u-m and go uh amazing name and then he puts it in there and he gets like it's the whole thing he gets back in the car and he's like it's in there nobody said and it's it's it blows up people are like that's really funny dude which sure that's a funny idea i watched it and i was like that is funny i wonder how long it'll stay there and he did a bunch of follow-ups and eventually the account of the gas station the come and go account was like hey we saw what you did uh we're gonna have to take that out of the store but what if we did like a

promotion or something what if we made the kyle sheely meal right and he was like this is crazy this goes so cool we're gonna do a collab with come and go gas stations and in like three days it went from this dude's doing a prank to come and go rolling out the official kyle sheely meal i don't know the exact timeline but it's super fast and i remember when i saw the announcement i was like how do they move that fast like nothing corporate ever happens that fast it would be like a month between them being like hey maybe we should work with this guy who made a viral video to like get things approved printed get stuff out to all of your franchises because it's a you know it's like a nationwide thing anyway this all happens they

roll out the kyle sheely meal and at some point like a couple weeks after this has all gone down nothing is tagged as an ad or as a collab until they start announcing this stuff finally someone is like hey wait a minute. This whole thing was conceived from the beginning. They were working together the whole time. Apparently, this was a plant. Come and go. And this dude schemed this whole thing up and, you know, did the whole thing to get

it to go viral, then to act like they were just coming to this, you know, grassroots dude. Aside from the issue of, I can't believe he posted all of this stuff, which they were clearly paying him or compensating him in some way for setting up this quote unquote prank and stuff. Aside from that, I was like, you know what? Fucking smart ad. Like you drew a bunch of people in.

I feel a little slighted. Like I don't have a gas station near me anyway. I might've gone and got the meal just for fun. it was kind of a meme yeah for a minute but you know like funny ad like at least you're doing something interesting everyone else on the internet other than me got fucking pissed they were like this is fraud this is what's bad and wrong with advertising in this modern day and age how do you guys react to that are you guys mad about that should i guys mad about that? Should I be mad about that? Am I a capitalist like bootlicker for just being like,

funny ad, it's okay. I mean, it's a question of like disclosure. That's what it comes down to. People don't like to feel like they've been tricked, right? That's why there are disclosure requirements. So people don't unknowingly be sold something that they aren't really aware of. I don't know the legalities of it, but I can kind of understand how people would be like, yeah, go. They're cheering for the underdog. And yet he was a corporate shill the entire time. And he pulled one over on everybody. What's the phrase?

Pull one over. That's a good question. I don't know. I don't know. Pull one over. Pull one over on someone to pull one over on pulled one over on me pulled pull he pulled me over pulled i don't want a definition i want the origin yeah origin pull pull over put put one over on put one over on someone put someone over

a barrel pull where did it come from what the hell is it pull one over originally or the pull a fast one or is it even something different than that yeah what is that it's those seem related but i don't know if they're the same or different pull one over pull one over pull because i can totally understand pull a fast one right it's like implying things about like sleight of hand it's tricky because you're slick uh tricky slicky but what the hell is pulling over on that i mean i don't know pull the wool over your eyes which is also weird what the hell pull the wool that's gotta be like a literal thing okay medieval fairs were places of wonder and dastardly deeds where

robbers were always on the lookout for victims their favorite technique was to pull the victim's hood over their eyes while cutting the purse strings hence the expressions hoodwinked oh and to pull the wool over one's eyes that makes me like hoodwinked so much more then they would have pulled one over on them and pulled a fast one it all makes sense oh i thought it had to do with sheep pull the wool over one's eyes but i guess that doesn't make any sense you're pulling the sheep's own wool over its eyes so it doesn't know you're about to kill it or shave it or something this was a great non-planned tangent today's sponsor is wool hoodies mark's conceptualization of sharing a sheep is you come up behind the sheep and you wrap your

arms around it and it's like hey what and you're like it's okay it's okay pull the wool down over the eyes like this there's only a little bit it It's going to be fine. You start cheering the sheep. Whoa. Why are you robbing slash mugging the sheep for their wool? What's happening? Hey, listen. I don't like this. I don't like this.

I'm stepping out of it. We all learned something today. But it's back to advertising. I do understand how people, because they do like cheering for the underdog. And yes, it's both like an act of rebellion that turns out as a win for the person you were cheering for. And then to discover that they were not true from the beginning. I can see being mad about that. Yeah, I see nothing wrong with like what they did as far as like working together, doing

the whole thing. But the fact that they didn't properly disclose it and it was played off as being a legitimate prank that does feel wrong that part rubs me the wrong way the what they did doesn't bother me like if that was something they presented like on a tv commercial and they showed like the different steps of it or whatever i'd be like actually that's pretty funny all right well done well done yeah but if i uploaded videos where i was like guys i've been stealing milkshakes from this company for months and then come to find out like you know i go in there i sneak a milkshake i run out the door whatever like oh i can't believe you did it again and come to find out i was working with them and it was a paid thing anyway like that would feel totally wrong yeah it all boils down to like

entertainment value right that's what a lot of advertisements try to strive for they try to be entertaining because that's memorable and people want to be entertained and so having that outcome from the initial entertainment of like oh yeah you're really sticking it to them where'd that phrase come from oh god what are we doing no no no no no but like and then it to them sticking it to them i'm thinking of the scary movie scene you know the sex scene from scary movie one. He really stuck her to the ceiling Do you remember is that the words I do? Yeah, that was I can't think of a jizz pun I watched that movie way too young. I should not Watch that movie. I think I wanted like when it first came out. When did that come out a scary movie?

I actually looked up while you're looking that up I looked up clips from that the other day because I wanted to see the scene where he throws the piano down the stairs and it hits the grandma on the face he's like hi baby the the scene from scary movie three where the sheriff's hat keeps getting bigger that i think of that daily like i legitimately love that joke anyway sorry what were you talking about um the the common go ever oh stick it to them stick it to them no before that okay advertising the come and go it sours it sours the entertainment value that they had so whatever joy they had suddenly becomes like what what the oh man they feel bad about themselves they feel bad that they were fooled you know so they have to have like this outlet and i understand that i guess for me maybe this is just my overly cynical

side coming out in a weird way but like i guess i don't watch anything without somewhere in the back of my mind considering that like well this is some kind of ad i'm not gonna say that nobody has artistic intention and nobody makes things purely because they have a vision or they they want to elicit something in other people or whatever motivation for art but like when i'm consuming media if i'm on tiktok i'm very skeptical anything i watch i'm like this is basically an ad even if it's someone just doing something for their own purposes their own account they're advertising their own stuff yeah like they're doing tiktok because it's their job or they're doing tiktok because they're a musician or they're in a band or they have an etsy shop

or whatever like and like i don't hold that against anyone but i guess even watching that i was like well this is blown up like before it happened i had the thought like this is blown up they're definitely gonna meme on this like come and go is at the very least gonna make tiktoks or tweets or something about this they might work together uh who knows he'll be in a commercial i don't know but like i guess i just i just see that everywhere so it doesn't bother me but that is a problem yeah they're they're actually it's interesting because this reminds me of a subreddit that is dedicated to quote-unquote calling out i believe it's specifically asian videos that are set up as if it was like cctv footage or like incognito filmed as if it was just like a normal situation but it's like it's a comedy sketch and like something funny happens but people get

irrationally upset because they're like no no no this is staged it's staged they they set all this up and they the joke is you know pre-planned it was pre-planned and i'm like yeah have you ever heard of a sketch i mean have you ever heard of like writers have you ever heard of like any kind of comedy based show where they pre-plan their jokes does that make it less funny and i get like there are some videos that are intentionally shot to look like it was supposed to be just a random occurrence in real life and you know like whatever they're trying to get out of it i don't know but at the same time it's like what you said bob like i look at everything on the internet with this idea that like this could be fake but is it entertaining is it worth me watching that should be like the core experience behind it yeah even videos of some completely real video

like a completely real someone security guard found a cctv video of a hilarious thing where someone falls on an ice in a funny way yeah even if that's pure just life happening and someone captured it the thing that i experienced from that is not based on whether or not it's real. It's how I relate to it. The entire point of scripted shows, scripted comedy, is that it elicits some sort of connection or reaction in you. So this makes me feel like I'm just a desensitized sociopath or something. But I really don't care if stuff is fake.

I assume things are fake. If it's online, it's probably fake. Yeah know you know how hard it is to get footage from like a security camera system in the place where you work where the security cameras guard you know the important valuable assets of the company and you if you went to your boss and you were like greg i got this clip on the security system of the garbage man slipping on the ice and falling headfirst into the trash can. It's so funny. Can I please like clip that and download it or like record it with my phone? He'll be like, no, that's not what you're supposed to. You're supposed to be patrolling. What are you doing? That's not a thing that happens in real

life. No bosses could be like, oh my God. Yeah. Put that on Reddit. Shit. Yeah. That's going to be such good publicity for our back alley sidewalk with no like no one that doesn't happen i assume it's fake yeah but anyway i i still all of this conversation like this is pretty real how i feel but it does make me question like oh no am i part of the system whoa what are you listening to this for? Wait, who's talking? You know you're driving a 2024 Ford Escape with available Alexa built in, so you can change the music. Oh yeah, Alexa, change station to 99.2. See? Purchase a 2024 Escape ST-Line all-wheel drive with Tech Pack at 3.49% APR for 72 months with down payment.

That's just $267 bi-weekly. Cash value of $40 plus eligible ford owners get a thousand dollar bonus for details visit your local ford store or ford.ca do you guys remember the nationwide life comes at you fast commercials i loved those things when those first started coming out which ones though yeah they would play like the tune the and like they would always like show something like there was one where like someone was like driving their car through the woods or something like a tree falls on them like out of nowhere or i think during like the super bowl they had like fabio uh on a boat like paddling through a river they're like the new fabio shampoo and he passes under a bridge and he comes out and he's like really old and no longer like the sexy man stud they're like life comes at you fast by switching to nationwide do you remember those commercials at all because those live rent free in my head all

the time i vaguely remember those i didn't attach to those but i do really like the uh the mayhem commercials yeah same idea the yeah mayhem like me i love that dude yeah it's the same idea it's just like chaos and a commercial it's actually kind of funny that guy get in a car accident recently i don't know he's in the he's in like one or a couple of the john wick movies i think yeah dean winters it was really off-putting to see him could have sworn yeah whoa okay this is actually serious dean winters living in pain after multiple amputations oh my god that's not that's not light-hearted at all that sucks two toes and half a thumb amputated due to a bacterial infection oh shit that sucks almost died that was back in 2009 oh it's toes and a thumb oh that's wasn't that even before

these started coming out yeah that's what this says this is back it hasn't taken a step since i'm not being in pain oh this this isn't recent oh okay all right because i was really struggling not to say life comes at you fast when i read that title jeez mark and i was like ah that wouldn't be that wouldn't be cool to make a joke about this but ah he's fine now so we can make jokes right he's he's good yeah he's good that's uh crazy yeah but also happened in 2009 weird yeah i had never heard that story really weird no you know what ad uh sticks in my mind is the nutrigrain commercial the what from it's you probably wouldn't like remember it if i just say nutrigrain or no it wasn't nutrigrain it was see the commercial didn't work because i don't remember the name of the the thing uh what's that like the green little oat bar what is that called nature

made nature made was that it feels good our nature no yeah wait what is that no no no was it nutrigrain it might have been uh i feel yeah it was nutrigrain it was nutrigrain i feel great it's it's the one where this guy i'll post it in the Discord, but he basically takes a bite of a Nutri-Grain bar and he constantly goes, Oh, I feel great. Come on, hit me. I want to make some babies. You know, like that.

Oh my God, it looks like it was shot on a camcorder. It's old. Like it's an old commercial. I see it on YouTube back in 06. So it's at least 15 or so years old, at least. Yeah, it came out in 03. I remember that. Okay. And I have gone back to watch that commercial.

Just ran. You're a great guy with great instincts. You're going to do great. What the hell? It's like, it's so fast paced. It's so insane. And clearly Nutri-Grain would never have this effect on a human being at all it's just basically jam wrapped in really weird grain stuff it's like a fake Newton exactly yeah and I've

eaten Nutri-Grain bars they are food and you know what wait though can I say I remember a lot of occasions being over at your place and we're like, oh, we're going to like, let's have a lunch or whatever. Let's have some food. You always have Nutri-Grain bars. I do. In your pantry. Am I going crazy?

I feel like I have specific memories of you always having Nutri-Grain bars around for like a lot of instances. You might be right. And this may be a case where the commercial works better than I thought it did the most effective advertisement in the history of mankind you watched this when you were a kid in the 90s and the entire rest of your life you've been like oh gotta grab the nutrigrain god i fucking hate those yeah why do i buy those yeah why do i buy those i don't really like i don't know i have to buy them though i have to buy them i've got i've got an example of a good commercial that like sticks in my head that like oh man i have

nostalgia for that toy and that stuff and they've got like do you guys remember the i think they still run it the i had to look up which car company it was because again it didn't really work on me it was the gmc commercial that came out in like uh christmas time like i think 2018 ish where this uh couple that is way wealthier than like 90 or 99 of humanity have this like modernistic mansion and it starts off with like the the lady being like oh hey i got us something and uh one for you one for me and it's like watches are red and a black watch and then he's like oh i also got us something and they step outside and there's two brand new like gmc suvs a red one and a black one and she's like i love it and she runs to the black one he's like

oh no wait that one's for i love it uh i love it and he's like i like red and it did not make me want to buy a gmc nor feel like i ever could buy a gmc because if you have to own that kind of mansion to afford it but i always think of that commercial it's it stuck with me despite the fact it i have no interest in the product the commercial has stuck with me though Despite the fact I have no interest in the product, the commercial has stuck with me. I like red. That's because that's the point of commercials and advertising. It's not necessarily to sell you something or to like get money back for like if we convert enough sales.

It's just to get the name of the company into your head. So that wouldn't even work because I had to look it up. I had to look at what car it was. They never say it at all. You know what's interesting about that what you're saying mark is like ostensibly the point of commercials i just realized you know who really stands to benefit from a commercial being incredibly memorable and like burning into your memory what it's if it's the fucking companies that make the commercials they don't give a shit about if they want to have enough info where they can be like look you paid us 20 million dollars look at all this hype look we will be made a viral commercial

people are protesting you know whatever people are all over this but no one remembers that it's a gmt commercial but then when that company is like to the next big company they're like look at this look at this viral ad we made it was amazing that only benefits them that doesn't benefit the company you couldn't even remember if it was nutrigrain or not yeah a commercial from two decades three decades two decades two and a half decades you remember the commercial vividly had nothing to do with the product yeah i wonder i mean i don't wonder i assert commercial companies advertising firms they're all out for themselves i mean it's a conspiracy you might be absolutely right but but i would corporations are getting scammed i would counter that because you just

said that i have a lot of nutrigrain bars in my history okay well maybe it's subconscious then i don't know about that i think it's like a subconscious thing food commercials hit differently though because if i see food that i want i'm like all right fucking i'm ordering pizza tonight but if i see like another product i'm like man i really need clorox bleach today like no no that it's a thing because when you're in a store you see so many brands but you will recognize one even if you don't realize it you'll gravitate towards that one because you're like oh i've heard of this or like i recognize this one i've heard of this brand name whereas other ones like it's all the same product that the illusion of choice spread throughout the american economy and all of it is just a

bunch of bullshit and all of the conglomerates own every company anyway and there's really no differentiating between the product you get a two but two space one says whitening one says uh less sensitivity on your gums they're both the same thing if you look at the ingredients it's exactly the same but i did buy mr bucket as a kid and not mr yellow can i wasn't done but you gravitate towards the one that you recognize because you have heard something about it and so having those different choices there just makes it so that one of them can stand out to you i'm done now so i have a question about this i guess you brought up an interesting point for me mark okay when you are shopping and when i am shopping in general and there's like the brand name or brand names multiple and then there's like the store brand i don't care about the brand name

i will buy store brand anything pretty much i will recognize brands and if i'm looking for something specific that like a certain brand makes a certain flavor or something sure i will recognize brands and if i'm looking for something specific that like a certain brand makes a certain flavor or something sure i will do that i will pick that one but in general if i'm trying to buy like ibuprofen i don't really care unless i'm like i'm really sick and i need the medicine or i have a crazy headache and i'm buying ibuprofen because i have a crazy ass headache then something in my brain is like get get the name brand uh get the good one it will work better yeah i guess that's true that does work like that how do you how do you guys differentiate that do you not care about store brand do you get the name brand because you because it's something in your head yes i would

agree with that toilet paper and paper towels i want like the best one of toilet paper i cannot stand crappy toilet paper no pun intended i need soft thick sheets that comfort my rectum yeah um sorry i went a little too far there but you know i i can't handle like the little thin papery stuff at the moment they touch your butt it disintegrates and it's just your hand on your asshole i think you might need more layers of toilet i have a tip on that uh you could stop at any i have acidic ass you could literally stop anytime oh no you recognize you were at the edge of the cliff and then you kept going but you know what i'm talking about you know that really awful toilet paper wait that's the spiciest ass you have ever seen i feel like this is a good time to bring up this advertising topic. It's Molly.

Credit to Molly for this. So the reason this ass stuff is in your brain is Molly's fault. You're welcome. Why would you bring Molly into this? To point in a different direction than myself. It's not working. I'm the judge and I say if it works or not. Okay, so that's interesting though.

So I'm the same way about toilet paper which you know you wouldn't want to cover something cheap and poop and flush it down the toilet you want to cover the more expensive thing obviously here's an example of of this that's kind of because most of the time i'm okay with generic brand where i'm not okay is like amazon basics stuff oh you know you know, you know what I mean? Like Amazon basics. No, no, no. Amazon basics is terrible because not only are they like,

OK, they're offering like staple items at like low prices. That was the whole idea behind it. But then they went a step further and there's an example with, I think it's Peak Design Backpacks, right? So Peak Design is a high quality backpack manufacturer. I own a few. I'm not sponsored by them. They just make good shit, right? So Peak Design is a high quality backpack manufacturer. I own a few,

I'm not sponsored by them. They just make good shit, right? Sure. So they have what's called like an I think it's called like their everyday sling. It's just a pack that goes over your shoulder, it wraps around very convenient for holding cameras and quickly accessing them. Amazon came out with a literal copy of it. I think they even called it like the everyday sling. They have since changed it because Peak Design called them out in a video and of it. I think they even called it like the everyday sling. They have since changed it because Peak Design called them out in a video and it just opened up this window to me anyway. They were probably already doing this. Where Amazon Basics, what they do is they find a popular product on their store on amazon.com and they will copy it because that one's popular and

they will offer it as a cheaper alternative. They will place it higher in the rankings so that you see, oh, that one's, ooh, it's more money. Ooh, this one's cheaper, but it's lower quality. I will pay for quality any day. And it's the same extension as the toilet paper thing, because I know when I buy it from, say, this company, Peak Design, or any other company that makes high quality goods, and I know that, I know it's going to last longer.

I know it's going to be more effective for what I need it to do. It's going to be more intelligently designed, it's going to have higher quality materials, like really, there's a whole thing about like boots, you know, like that has been echoing since the early 1800s, whenever boots started being made, probably before that, but you know, I'm just guessing just guessing it's like you can buy a shitty pair of boots that'll wear out in six months of constant use or you can buy a really nice pair of boots that cost maybe double maybe even triple the price but they'll last you your life like it'll last forever and that's like the philosophy i go in terms of buying a store brand thing versus a name brand thing that's fair and amazon is a that's bad it's it's bad at

that kind of thing but but listen so that's like a practice of amazon around the basics whatever brand sure yeah that's really shitty obviously they're using their substantial resources they have where they could literally see any product and be like yeah we can source that shit and slap something together that looks kind of like that and sell it for a third of the price yep and like i think i don't know i don't want to be on the side of amazon here but i think it's good that that option exists yeah because if it's expensive high quality stuff or can't afford then yeah you need something in between can't afford anything and uh you know a 200 backpacker i don't know how much those peak design ones are but like yeah they're pretty pricey right yeah they're nice but they're pricey yeah for a nice bag that's that's sort of what you pay but like yeah the amazon stuff is not as good

but like in my office right now i have within reach several seven eight things that are amazon basics because it's things like a phone charging cord that I don't want to pay 50 bucks for a five foot long braided carbon fiber. Sure. You know, there are certain things that Amazon Basics is great for, aside from the fact that it's from Amazon, but whatever, you know,

the capitalism issues aside, that's cool. But yeah, the stealing of the ideas and knocking shit off, and I would never buy that either. I feel like that's totally fair. Yeah. But I'm also such a cheapskate i would never buy a peak design bag i would look at peak and then be like all right who's copying peak who's not amazon what about like a 60 version of that bag i would go on you know i would get an instagram ad three days later and i'd be like that's that's what i wanted and it'd probably be the same bag that amazon's selling but just

yeah with a higher price because it has a different brand on it absolutely there are things like that who's the sucker i guess but i would never buy like an apple is a good example of it apple's charging cords why would you go for that they're so not even good they're not even good or they're just good enough you know they work and you know they'll work but also you can find any other there's hundreds of companies that have cables you just look at reviews like hey this one works and it's cheap bam that one mine thank you they have medicine on amazon basics you get medicine it's like you'll have half the diarrhea you had instead of no diarrhea it's interesting i gotta look at that amazon basics medicine no i'm gonna i'm gonna look amazon basics uh medicine what do we got it's one third the dose you need for the price you want to

pay oh yeah amazon basics cold and flu is there amazon basics acid reducer with amazon printed right on the box oh my god amazon basics acetaminophen uh amazon basics tussin is it as good as regular medicine i mean so like legally it has to be right it has to say what ingredients are in it it has to have the correct ingredients in it yeah to some extent then again the people running our country whenever they get interviewed about stuff like this they don't seem to know what the fuck they're talking about so they probably don't even know it exists yeah i don't know i mean that's the thing too with all the levels of regulation and different types of things are regulated differently the companies will put a badge on there you know they make like a

supplement and they'll put a badge that's like organic and certified like the fda does not certify something who certified this what do you mean certified i can see the congressional hearing now like mr bezos i had an ear infection i went to amazon and the doctor there told me to buy this basic uh acetaminophen now can you help me get better internet thank you congressman please go back to bed now all right thank you nurse help me to my bed oh my god this is amazon basics basketball which is just a brown basketball with amazon basics embossed on one panel and that's it the brand is basketball oh wow all right so amazon basics is a mixed bag yeah but yeah i mean that's interesting because

i do trust their medicine bob i buy store-brand medicine in general and it works that's the thing too about stuff like this people are like oh it's from amazon well no it's not from it's if it's a generic medicine it's probably from the same place that all of the other store-brand medicines are from yeah it seems like everything is differentiated with the packaging and stuff stuff in america comes from like three sources i know yeah there's like there's not that many companies so it's probably the exact same shit you want me to go on my rant about homogenized corporations do you want me to do it oh baby please go there come on i was doing it before but i'll do it again we have bob's fridge and mark's homogenized sources you know how many toothpaste there are all of it's procter and

gamble every single one of them cincinnati-based procter and gamble owns the entire toothpaste industry it's all the same it comes down to one building kroger it ralphs it's the same ralphs is owned by kroger you think ralphs is different just because it's on the west coast no It comes down to one building. Kroger. It Ralphs. It's the same. Ralphs is owned by Kroger. You think Ralphs is different just because it's on the West Coast? No. Kroger. Down south, there's another one.

I don't even remember what it is. It's Kroger. Harris Teeter. Uh-huh. Harris Teeter. That's the one. Harris Teeter. I've never heard of that.

But Harry Titties. Yeah. Dude, the South has some crazy ass grocery stores. Yeah. Harris Teeter. Food Lion. Whatever the Texas one. Heb. Heb. titties yeah dude the south has some crazy ass grocery stores yeah harris teeter food lion whatever the texas one heb proger at least in cincinnati will give you plastic bags i don't know what y'all are doing in california but we still get bags over here we still get there's plastic bags what do you mean what happened to you what did you think happened i had to carry

my groceries out by my bare hands wasn't allowed to wear gloves when I carried them. Maybe that was you. You just walked out. They were like, hey, we got paper bags. Is that okay? Oh, nay, I say. To hell with thee, paper. Yeah, plastic is clearly superior.

It recycles better. It burns better. Paper? What's paper used for? You can get plastic. Every grocery store i've been to in california has had plastic bags yeah but they charge you for the bags okay yeah they charge you 10 cents a bag wade it's real steep oh but what if i need 10 bags that's a full dollar no the thing is the new plastic bags that they charge you for you can bring them back oh they're very reusable you

notice how they're thicker they're meant to be used multiple times i actually kind of wish we had a system of more reusable stuff here in all seriousness we have that thing what do you mean go buy a bag all right mark i'm not i don't really can you please keep this to english i don't know what you're saying right now go buy any bet you have a backpack right you even put groceries in any container that you can carry yeah see we have a whole like pantry the whole bottom of the pantry is just like those cheap bags and we use them for like garbage bags some of our bathrooms and stuff but we still get more than we end up using we have so many bags back oh man i know for a fact croakers in ohio have things right by the exits and entrances, which is the big thing that's like, recycle your plastic bags, stuff them in here.

Free, right there, right at the grocery store. I've never noticed. I don't know if ours do. Wade tunnel visions food and toilet paper. He's got serious scanning for high quality toilet paper. Well, yeah, what else do you get at the grocery store other than food and bags? Wade comes storming into the Kroger, butt absolutely c absolutely caked in poo like i can't believe we ran out again this has got to stop happening my car smells so you don't have a car sorry oh and there's a hole

in my pants where my acidic ass is ripped through everything i can't wipe it with the good paper there's so many boxers with this acidic butthole i learned about the there reminds me of the there's actually a thing called piss hands uh in the in the uh the i learned about that as well art world were you watching corridor crew yes like adam savage talking about his piss hands i'm googling piss hands against my better judgment oh that's dangerous i don't know about that i don't it's a very like you, small circle that knows what piss hands is specifically. I got it. Urban Dictionary says the act of putting your hand in front of the penis or under the vagina to intercept piss as it flows out.

Yep. Right? That's the one. Uh-huh. That's what Adam Savage did a lot. A warm to mildly hot sensation may follow. Warm to hot. Wait.

Mildly hot. Mildly hot. Formed a hot. Wait. Mildly hot. Mildly hot. And then the following article says, can peeing on your hands make them, oh, that says see-through. It says tough.

Never mind. I thought. Wait, you saw, see-through was tough. Yeah, I thought tough was see-through. It absolutely will toughen up that hand pad. But will they become see-through? Well, that's tougher to debate oh my god another article urine is sterile so why do men wash their hands i mean fair question fair question because your dick's not wait yours isn't uh but urine comes out down there so it's gotta be grabbing the urine what

are you doing how do you like a water bender with like the stream coming out your dick and you just aim it Wash your dick with your urine Sarah Sarah Sarah tiles it sterile sterilize it. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. It's not a sterilizer It is sterile, but the moment it comes out of your penis. It becomes not sterile People think sterile means something that it doesn't mean Means it's like Purell, right? Hey, I'm out of Purell. Anybody ever offers me hand

sanitizer again, I'm saying no. Purell manufacturing plant is just a bunch of weird toilets that collect it all. You gotta get the yellow out of it so nobody knows the secret. Yeah, that's why the knockoff brands are all yellowed. You know, they don't have the extra step. Why does some hand sanitizer have the little like chunky bits in them?

Like, you know, the little like... They're like little silicon beads or something. Yeah, I don't like that kind. I got to be honest. Is that chunky pee. I don't like that kind. I gotta be honest. Is that chunky pee? I don't think that's a thing. Look, this is about advertising. Wait, I have something else we can talk about.

Great, you get two points, Bob, for a segue. Have you guys ever seen Pink Marjoram? I didn't know her last name, but her music's pretty good. Yeah, sure. So, Butter, right? Thank you thank you i will everybody loves butter uh but during the early part like during the industrial revolution the other late 19th early 20th century buttery was kind of hard to come by was not shelf stable because i had to be refrigerated all this stuff margarine it's basically like whipped oil right it's shelf stable it's kind of like butter

it tastes pretty good but apparently there was this big thing when margarine was invented it's kind of like a grayish color because it's basically oil it's not a particularly good color it's kind of gross and there was a huge fight the dairy farmer like lobbyists or whoever got local governments as well as like state and larger area provincial governments in Canada to make a law that margarine could not be butter colored. And so for a long time, and still today in some specific brands, margarine is sold in either a disgusting, like grayish, gross, non-edible looking color or bright pink because it has to be distinguished from butter because they did not want margarine pretending

to be butter. It's really gross. Like imagine you're having a piece of toast and you're like, oh honey, will you hand me the margarine? And it's just like a tub of pink. Like it looks like cotton candy gum and it's horrific. I'm okay with that. Wait, was I can't believe it's not butter, actually margarine?

What? Yeah, that's what that is, I think, right? Of course it is. Wasn't that the same color as butter? It is now. What I'm saying, this was like, you know, 7,800 years ago. Okay, gotcha. There are still brands that in modern times sell pink margarine, but I think it's like a,

oh, this is the old-timey margarine or whatever. I have no idea why they would choose to do that. It sounds terrible, but it looks gross. I mean, I don't think it looks so gross. I'm actually okay with that. It looks like strawberry-flavored something. It actually looks kind of good. Yeah, I'm okay with it.

It looks like Pepto-Bismol spread on a piece of toast. I get that, but also my mind doesn't go to Pepto-Bismol. My mind does go to bubblegum, and I don't want a bubblegum butter, but knowing that it's margarine, I think I would be able to fight through that and get straight to the deliciousness. does go to bubble gum and i don't want a bubble gum butter but knowing that it's margarine i think i would be able to fight through that and get straight to the deliciousness bob you get a point for having pepto bismol work on you you thought of their brand upset stomach diarrhea are there like i guess uh we're coming toward the end here a little bit but are there like commercials you

know worked on you that i know chevrolet lower prices lower rates have you ever been to a mccluskey's oh god no i would never buy a chevrolet in my entire life no so it's specifically advertisements that we have gone out and bought something yeah like you like you've seen the advertisement you're like okay i'm gonna buy that oh yeah actually i do have an occasion i saw an ad online i forget what website it was on but it was for a wallet a wallet company and it was specifically not that techie wallet that everyone sees rich wallet yeah it's not that one and literally because i had been inundated with ads for that wallet when i saw this other one that was like a very nice higher quality leather wallet like i went in to the website i looked at all the this other one that was like a very nice higher quality leather wallet

like i went in to the website i looked at all the research about it it was like very well reviewed i bought it specifically because you know i'm the kind of guy like i i got my wallet from hot topic 20 years ago you know i don't really care i found a wallet off the street i threw all the money away and then i took it as my own you know i like but i went out and i i've no further comment on my story there i went out and i bought this wallet and i to this day it's my favorite wallet i look at the thing and i get happy like you know the the the lady on the netflix show yeah like if it doesn't bring you joy throw it away when i when i look at it sometimes it brings me joy and i know i'm a capitalist shill for looking at a product and thinking that but i really like it, sometimes it brings me joy. And I know I'm a capitalist shill for looking at

a product and thinking that, but I really like it. It's, it's got a great science, good color, and it's high quality. And I've ran it through the wash a few times accidentally. And it's been exactly the same. The color is the same. The design is the same. Like it's just a very well made wallet. I'm very happy that there was an ad that showed me because I never would have known about it otherwise. Did you see the ad and it was like, it has these features and you were like, wow, shit. Or was it literally you saw the ad and you were like, I like that way better than that other one.

I'm just going to buy this one. It literally was that I was curious about it. It didn't say anything splashy. It was not something that was like, oh, this wallet is amazing, a million features. It was literally, I think it just was a picture of the wallet and it said wallet underneath. And I was like, sold.

Give me two. Which I i did i bought two real quick before we wrap this up i i want to ask the opposite is there a commercial that you remember that just hit you in a way where you're like i'm never buying that product because the commercial was either just so cringe so bad or just so like it just made it had the opposite effect where you recognize the brand you're like i'm not touching that with a 25 foot pole oh man um can i this might be controversial because i feel like people liked these commercials yeah it's your opinion it's not a fact can i just say the terry crews old spice commercials really that's interesting i hate i hate those okay i think they're funny like i watch them and and I'm like, oh, ha. Oh, and it zoomed in.

Wow, it is nipples dancing or whatever. It's funny. But they're so cringy. Like every time I see one, my visceral reaction is like, oh, oh, I don't want Old Spice. Oh God. Like, I don't know why. Cause I think they're funny. They're funny.

Terry Crews is funny. I like that guy. I thought that way about Puppy Monkey Baby. Like it did not make me want mountain dew the commercial i like laughed at it but i was like watching this like dude's junk in his underwear jiggle around it's not maybe one to buy this i know exactly what you're talking about puppy monkey you love that i did that one for a long time after that super bowl i would interject puppy monkey baby for no reason i hated that yeah i did not make me want mountain dew i was like i'm not buying mountain dew the commercial is funny but

like i do not want to drink this and think of a yeah fucking it is so it is such a fine line of intentionally cringy stuff that like is an advertisement that just like there's a way that sometimes it works and gets stuck in people's head. For me, it's the Starburst commercial. And I know I'm probably in the minority of this one. It's the berries and cream, berries and cream. I always hated that one. Oh, like for some reason, but for some people, and it had a resurgence recently on, I think, TikTok of like that coming back.

And then they brought the original actor back. And I was like, why did you bring this back? No, I also hate that one. I hate that one i hate yeah i hate that one i couldn't stand it and i saw it all the time because i watched a lot of like cartoon network and nickelodeon and it would always play nothing against the guy who plays that that's fine i just i cannot stand that i i refuse to get starburst afterwards i'm just going down a horrible line of memories right now. I just rewatched the commercial and I have the same reaction.

God, I hate that. A lot of the insurance commercials too. I don't know. I generally don't like watching commercials, but don't have strong negative reactions to them. I've got another one. And this is a recent one. It's a recent commercial.

Have you guys seen the one with Matt Damon? And I'm not even going to talk about like the specific site that he's promoting. Oh, no. Yeah. Fortune favors the brave. That one. Yes. It's a crypto NFT commercial. I got nothing as Matt Damon specifically, but this commercial has the audacity to compare like the incredible achievements of humanity of like you know whatever explorer like progress and stuff like that going to space and it ends on going like mars and the dream of like humanity on mars like cryptocurrency the next step in human history it's like oh come on i i adamantly like i see uh before we get a million people coming to hate i see the potential of specifically the blockchain the idea and the technology behind it that one thing i see the

potential in that the current ecosystem of that entire universe do not compare it don't you dare no i this is not a this is not a testimony as far as the product goes this is simply did the commercial hit you in a way that you're like oh yeah or oh no like no i get you that commercial hit me all wrong too oh i hate hate hate hate hate hate that's a good barometer you should bust that out if you're like at a party with a group of new people yeah just play that and if anyone is like ah yeah it's made like 4k on dip coin bro then you know you don't want to be friends with that person you can rule them out exactly yeah no i fucking hate that commercial we might have to crack out a part two for this eventually because i feel like we have a lot to say about advertising no no no no i'll save that for a rainy day it'll come back it's

gonna be a marketing podcast in the next month yeah all of our sponsors are gonna pull out like we didn't like what you had to say yeah we didn't even talk about like our methodology for advertising our ads are dynamic and engaging they really inform you about the product and we end every ad recording with the sentence, do you think they'll let us do that? I do think it's funny. I don't know if we've talked about it before. So the ads are 60 seconds, right?

Yeah. I have no idea what ours end up being. Last time we recorded, well, they do. They end up being 60 seconds. The last time we recorded ads, recorded four ads uh in an hour and it's not like we're sitting there just quietly like uh what if we talk no we're doing shit yeah we just start one of us is like i'll do it this episode is spot and then we just talk for like 20 minutes and then will is like oh my god ah just read god damn it i hate you guys we have to i i have to ask will it was obviously listening to this right now do you have a cutting room floor

of all the failed ad bits that we've done because bob was not exaggerating we legitimately to do 10 ads the just last week it took us an hour and 45 minutes from start to finish use a robot voice will insert it just be like yes i hate you guys no that's not what we're asking i'm asking is there a cutting room floor so that we can release that yeah answer it but yeah yes because that content right there that exists because yes we we have taken an approach to try to make our ads funny and engaging sometimes we're more successful than other times but what gets cut out is fucking hilarious but we all are like that can never we first started recording ads we did three or four takes per ad and we're like oh let's try this one will pick your favorite one now we just give one

take and we're like ah you'll you'll fix it in post and will is like i can pick out some sentences from this oh yeah man i i really want people to listen to that stuff someday it's got to exist if it doesn't will you might be doing that will you might have a job we're gonna have an episode that's just the failed advertising if you guys cut out the sponsors so it'll just be the random bits around which sponsor you would never be able to guess the sponsor from some of the bits if you guys want to hear that put it on the subreddit like get a little poll going or whatever or show your interest in it on the youtube comments or whatever have you i look

forward to the email from will where it's like i deleted that as fast as i got it guys it doesn't exist can't can't find any of those files sorry guys don't know what happened not doing that though yeah yeah just got the ever increasingly more offensive BetterHelp ads that we... Wasn't there literally... I'm not going to say what the idea was. Wasn't there one where I was like, okay, we got BetterHelp. I got an idea, guys.

And I was like, it is sponsored by BetterHelp. And I said one sentence and everyone was like, nope, nope, nope. No, no, no. I think we've had a few different sponsors where we come up with ideas where we immediately shut ourselves or each other down. Oh, man. Yeah.

This happened more than once, but definitely I remember that. And let's not talk about it. No, I don't know. I mean, that's a joke. That's a joke. I made that up. Will, edit this in post. It's sitting free, Will.

So I guess to wrap things up, we have a lot to say about advertising because for the last decade advertising has been a big part of our lives both in and out of our own jobs but i have to uh give the win to somebody here and looking at our points um i don't remember ever audibly getting a point this entire oh he was tracking him he was trying i i literally was keeping track i didn't say things out loud i didn't want to interrupt you guys but i gave you points for various bits i gave you guys both like two points at the start. It was three, but all right. Oh, maybe it was three.

I didn't keep track of when I gave them to you. You guys were mostly tied, but the edge goes to Mark. And the reason the edge goes to Mark is he had an outburst that was not quite Bob's fridge level, but it was still very funny. Listen to him go off on a tangent.

And that was really the difference in this episode. So our winner is Mark. Thank you. I'm very gracious. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. In this advertising episode, I'd like to take my winner's speech.

Do I get a winner's speech? Yeah, sure. Go ahead. Advertise. I was going to advertise. I have a new podcast. Whoa. Go for it.

With Tyler called Go My Favorite Sports. It's the Distractible Sister Podcast. i think that's what you call it oh do we get royalties from this now how much do we have you get nothing no not at all it's go my favorite sports team mark didn't finish the last word and uh you know big props tyler being a big sports guy big props to me for not um and uh yeah a bail on this podcast immediately go listen to that one never come back great um this episode sponsored by abandonment if you ever feel abandoned it better help us here for people to talk to you about that i guess that's true i'm gonna be very

careful how i proceed now but we're gonna wrap up bob do you want to segue into a loser's speech just to have something else said uh i didn't realize how valuable angry rants uh could be i'm gonna try and work more of those into more episodes in the future and hopefully uh steal away some wins that rightfully should have probably gone to the other person especially when i'm the host because you won bob's fridge with your angry rant if i remember that was the only one who said anything if market won now it would have been the biggest at the end of the end we had more points than you that episode you won because of golf rules no no that that that episode yeah it was weirdly close for me not saying anything at all that episode. That was my favorite Mark episode. All right.

Well, we're going to move on immediately. Thank you guys so much for tuning in to Distractible. Go listen to Go My Favorite Sports Team, but also do come back. We've got another banger coming out next week that Mark's hosting. Assume he doesn't leave us forever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks to our sponsors and all of our future advertising campaigns. I hope you all buy all those products and give us all your money. Well, we

don't get that money. We don't make money if they buy it. They get the money. That goes to the company. Well, at least we're here together having fun, the three of us. Stay tuned for next week's episode where Mark will host and who knows what the hell we'll talk about. Until then, goodbye my friends podcast out