No need to rush off to your eye doctor, you are reading it correctly – Bowel Buddy wafers. This is a classic example of bad product branding. If I purchased them, I’d want the bag wrapped in plain brown paper because it’s so truly embarrassing. I guess they never heard of focus groups.

“Oh dear, while you are up can you get me a couple of Bowel Buddies?”, “Oh darn, I’m out of Bowel Buddies” and “What’s that you’re eating there Bud? ….. What’s that? I didn’t catch the name.” The idea is sound, but talk about creating product aversion. Even the kings of constipation called their product Metamucil and Ex-Lax respectively. But we have a society obsessed with their bowel movements. So much so, one of the advertising pitches for this is “BOWEL BUDDY works to clear your colon of unwanted debris”. Urp… sorry, but colon’s don’t need cleansing. I was okay right up until I stumbled across that. It’s a con job folks. Our colons don’t store up “debris”. If they did, the human species would have died out before we fell out of the trees. It’s marketing gone mad. And at $13 a bag they better do more than vacuum out my colon – I expect the windows cleaned and my bed made as well.

Oh, by the way. If you are one of the makers of Bowel Buddy, you might want to pay just a wee bit more attention to how your product packaging looks here in Canada. The French word for pomegranate is emblazoned across the top of every bag, with the English on the bottom. Guess what the pomegranate translates to? GRENADE. Oh yea, each wafer, just like a little laxative bomb going off in your intestine. Smashing marketing plan there boys and girls, just smashing.

And we thought the Hawaii Chair was bad!

Now… tell me … does that look like a big toe floating in a bottle? It does to me… Try as I might, I can’t figure out what the design is supposed to be, I just can’t get past the toe-in-bottle image. I suppose it’s supposed to be a reflection of some sort, but nope, still see an amputated toe in a fancy bottle, no matter how I turn the image around. Anyone have an idea as to what this is supposed to represent?

The sign has been in place for months now and no one has corrected the sign yet. Sigh…. and the store sells books on American history for pete’s sake!

see more Fail Blog

The sign is gone and replaced with a new one. I’ve never bothered reading the sign until today. You’ll never guess what reason the TTC is giving for the still out of work escalator. Here’s the message (I’ll try to get a photo tomorrow):

  Constricted walkway due to hoarding and ongoing escalator maintenance.

Come on! Is the TTC making fun of us?

Hoarding? 

Seriously, who the hell hoards escalator parts?

Is there an International Escalator Cabal who has cornered the market on parts?

Is there a secret warehouse filled with escalator parts hidden deep in the Canadian tundra?

Really – these questions need to be answered!

Would you eat something called Beanee Weenees?

I don’t think I could. I’d keep spitting up the beanees and weenees everytime I think of the name. I’d be snorting beans and weiners all over the dinner table.

Beanee Weenees? Don’t you wish you were in the marketing meeting that came up with that name?