Windorphins.com—a progressive energy provider? A biomolecular study guide? A Saturday morning cartoon? You'd never know by the inscrutable advertisements that are popping up nationwide. Peppered with amoeba-like cartoon characters and impregnable aphorisms, these ads—some of which span entire subway cars—are as confusing as they are ubiquitous, and mark an annoyingly successful trend in advertising.
What's the point of an advertisement that's hard to crack? In the good old days of advertising, you were smacked in the face with the products that were being showcased (quite literally, in some cases ... thanks for that, HeadOn). With consumers having more choices now than ever, one would think that brand identification would be a paramount prerequisite for commercial success. Apparently the company sporting the "Windorphins" ads beg to differ—they've spent millions on a national ad campaign that never mentions a recognizable brand or product. Instead, the teasers display cutesy characters and phrases like "Nature's way of saying boo-yah," all designed to inflame one's sense of curiosity and lure you to the website. Windorphins.com turns out to be equally confusing, but contains some mildly amusing video shorts. Then, lo, the consumer-detective spots an eBay logo in a corner of the screen. The plot thickens! Some creative link-clicking leads to the eBay page of your choice, and you begin to realize that you're a test subject in a kind of advanced psycho-commercial experiment. This realization diminishes your self-esteem considerably, making you susceptible to a fit of spending, which is lucky because you are now staring at an eBay page for a Klingon battleaxe or a set of Teflon spatulas. Well done, eBay. Well done.—Alex Littlefield
LINKS
• Confuse yourself.
• A fool hands over a domain name for free
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