Advertising: Just Asking About J.Lo, ‘Chicago’ and Manning Up

¶ Now that the Chrysler Group has twice had trouble with ads for the Fiat 500 featuring Jennifer Lopez — the first was called “quite possibly the worst automotive spot of the last decade, hands down,” and the second was mocked after a blogger revealed that a body double was in scenes in her old Bronx neighborhood — is it time for Chrysler to give up before it has as many problematic Lopez ads as she has had marriages?

¶ Why do the employees of the Stage and Screen channel at the Music Choice cable music service believe that the slides on screen when Bebe Neuwirth performs “All That Jazz” from the musical “Chicago” ought to include photographs of and facts about the band Chicago?

¶ Did anyone involved in the decision to buy a commercial for Chevrolet trucks during the NBC sitcom “30 Rock” stop to think that there are probably, oh, 30 zillion other programs that are likely to have more truck buyers in the viewing audience than a series set in Manhattan about the female head writer of a television show?

¶ Would Murad be advertising in Teen Vogue magazine a facial scrub from its Clean Scene skin-care line if the product were not named Gaga for Glow?

¶ Will consumers want to buy a line of sandwich meat from Hormel Foods called Hormel Natural Choice after they remember that Hormel also sells the quintessential meat-in-a-can, Spam?

¶ Did it surprise the BET cable channel to find that it had promoted a new season of its series “The Game” in an ad supplement that was wrapped around an issue of the AM New York newspaper carrying the front-page headline “NYC Ain’t Got Game”?

¶ How many English teachers have blown a gasket over ads for the Honda Civic, intended to celebrate the different types of people who adore the car, that carry the headline “To each their own”?

¶ And how many English teachers have fallen ill over ads for the BlueCross BlueShield Association that show three photographs of different families with the surname “Williams,” each labeled “Meet the Williams” rather than “Meet the Williamses” or “Meet the Williams family”?

¶ Did readers of magazines like Whole Living who saw advertorials for the Secret Natural Mineral antiperspirant sold by Procter Gamble, which carried the headline “The nose knows,” recall how the comedian Jimmy Durante loved to use that line, including in commercials for Chock full o’Nuts coffee?

¶ Is it a bad omen for the Paul Mitchell hair care brand that ads for its new Mitch line of men’s grooming products, which carry headlines like “Man Up” and “Man Up for the Holidays,” are appearing in magazines around the time that ABC decided to stop production of a new sitcom, “Man Up,” and remove it from the prime-time schedule?

¶ Was J. C. Penney chagrined that it ran an ad in New York subways that carried the headline “We make style the perfect price. You budget better than Albany” after the State Legislature passed a budget described as “one of the leanest budgets in recent years,” which was also the first on-time budget in five years?

¶ Will consumers with long memories respond to ads from the Kellogg Company for its new Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats Touch of Fruit in the Middle cereal — which carry the headline “Fruit in the middle? Thought you’d never ask” — by declaring: “Oh, but we did ask. And you once gave us Kellogg’s Raisin Squares cereal with a jingle that proclaimed ‘Raisin in the middle.’ But then you stopped making it.”?

¶ Wouldn’t a television commercial for Carnival Cruise Lines in which an announcer declared, “Tell us what you’ve always wanted to do, on Facebook,” have been clearer if the announcer had said, “Tell us, on Facebook, what you’ve always wanted to do”?

¶ After RedLaser, a bar code-scanning mobile app from eBay, participated in a promotion with the rapper Lupe Fiasco, were executives able to answer reporters who asked, “Was Fiasco a success?” without sounding like the “Who’s on First?” routine from Abbott and Costello?

¶ Was it a coincidence that a biography of the actor Eric McCormack distributed by the cable channel TNT after it approved the production of “Perception,” a new series featuring him and Rachel Leigh Cook, omitted from his credits the TNT series “Trust Me,” which the channel canceled after its first season?

¶ Does an ad for the Pepperidge Farm Milano chocolate cookies sold by the Campbell Soup Company, which runs in women’s magazines and carries the headline “Some relationships are meant to be,” reinforce stereotypes about lonely women who substitute chocolate cookies for human interaction?

¶ Have the executives at the Sofitel chain of luxury hotels heard of a brand of toilet tissue, made by Royal Paper Converting and sold at Dollar Tree stores, that is named Sofitelle?

¶Will consumers seeking a cold drink confuse the Coke Zero soft drink sold by the Coca-Cola Company and the Café Zero coffee-based ice cream drink sold by Unilever?

¶ Does a line of kitchen appliances named after Better Homes and Gardens magazine, which is sold at Wal-Mart stores under the BHG brand, run the risk of being dissed or dismissed by shoppers who will utter three initials that sound like “BHG” but cannot be printed in a family newspaper?

¶ Would a singer, whose difficulties as a star of automotive ads are likely to cost her the chance to be nicknamed Jenny From the Engine Block, tell a reporter, “You ask a lot of questions for someone from Brooklyn”?

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 28, 2011

An earlier version of this column incorrectly identified the cruise line whose commercial asked, “Tell us what you’ve always wanted to do, on Facebook.” It was Carnival Cruise Lines, not Royal Caribeean.

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