consnickted

I'm guessing that by now you've seen (and are possibly tired of, or deeply detest) the Snickers ad campaign for which they've made up words in (brace yourself) "snacklish." Words like hungerectomy, peanutopolis, nougatocity have been around for months and the most recent wave brings snaxophone, nutopia, antihungerestablishmentariansm...and so on. Truth is - i'm conflicted about this awful/amazing semantic buffoonery in the name of selling a candy bar. Horrified and somewhat...taken with them. Despite the terrifying message they deliver about the power of brand recognition, I'm a reluctant fan. And enjoy imagining the meeting where a bunch of marketing execs sat around a table, dreaming up the campaign, and shouting out brand new words in snacklish.

But do they work? They've sprouted up thickly around downtown Chicago, and have come up lately in a few conversations (ok...i've brought them up) and it seems like while everyone has seen the ads...nobody I've talked to has actually bought a Snickers candy bar since noticing them at on billboards, at bus stops, on taxi cab roofs. Maybe we'll all buy cases off the internet this holiday season, and wonder why. Anyway, this latest batch of vocabulary is kinda weak. Take "chewmute," which is plastered on the side of CTA buses. Took days before I figured it out. Chewmute. On the bus. COMmute. Good grief, Charlie Brown.

Um...what about sound, you may be thinking? Right. Sound. Spend just a minute or two on the Snickers website. The audio is fucking out of control. And beware the loudspeakers, which belt out 'funky' and 'snaxophone' in the same sentence. Which should be against the law.