The Asterisk is Your Friend

Years ago, in a meeting between representatives from the legal, sales and marketing departments, someone suggested, "Really, we can pretty much say anything we want if we put an asterisk next to it, and then explain the overstatement or blatant lie on the back or the bottom in very small print."

In this case, that fine print would read: You can't really COUNT the peanuts and measure that count against the number of all the other nuts combined. When we say, "Less than 50%," we mean by weight. So, if you want, you can weigh all the peanuts and compare that result against the weight of all the other nuts combined and you'll find that it probably comes in at around 49.99999%. But don't you think it's cool how we managed to hide all the peanuts under a layer of the better nuts carefully placed on the top of the can? Do you know how long it took us to accomplish that feat of packaging? It's like automated food styling!"

Red, Red Wine

What I know about wine would fit on a Post-It note, as shown here. When looking for a bottle of wine, I'm just as likely to be suckered by a nicely designed label as I am by a clever or intriguing name for a vineyard. And the grocery store's wine section is like an art gallery of competing labels. But if you've got grapes on your label, you really didn't think this through and you aren't attracting me to look again. I know grapes make wine, thank you.

The phrase, "Don't judge a book by its cover," likely came into being because book jacket designers were doing a good job of getting people to buy crappy books just by making the covers attractive, whereas some hidden gems went unnoticed because the covers were bland. And so books, like wine, are best purchased upon the recommendation of someone you trust, be that a friend or a critic. But wine critics speak a language I don't understand. I don't know what a "hint of oak" is. "Soft buttery tones" is way too refined for my taste buds to determine. I would not know how to judge a wine's "character." I'm the idiot in the wine section looking at pretty labels.

This ad in today's PLAY magazine in The New York Times jumped out at me. The art is colorful and bold. I didn't even notice the poor copy as I was taken in by the old school illustration of a mountain stream. Then you look at the bottle and hope the art is duplicated there. It is, but not nearly to the effect of the ad. If the label had this sort of color and style, it would catch my eye in the store and I would give it a second look. Then I'd think, "Pinot noir...that was the wine that Paul Giamatti's character was obsessed with in the film Sideways. He was a wine snob in the first degree. And as I recall, pinot noir sales shot up as a result of that film. I hate following trends. I'm not drinking pinot noir. Where's that cheap Australian merlot ?"