Advertising is Important

Advertising executives are very important.  With out ad men (and ad women), consumers would have no idea what products to buy.  They’d have to make decisions based on their own uninfluenced minds.  The horror! 

I thank the Baby Jesus, Buddha and Yer Mama for the advertising industry’s affect on packaging.  Clients and agencies spend hours and huge dollars perfecting colors, copy, layouts, sizes and every single detail of all packaging.  Without some of this valuable information, consumers would be utterly clueless. 

Case in point comes from the fine folks of Ozeki Corporation in Japan.  They make the sake I enjoyed last night while out for sushi.  By the miracle of modern technology, magic and pure bullshit, I was able to obtain transcripts of what went down in the Ozeki offices as they were designing the label on their “Hana-Awaka” Sake (say that ten times fast), particularly the copy that was meant to, well, I don’t know what it was meant to do.  But here are the translated transcripts nonetheless:

Ozeki Product Manager:  We are shipping a thousand cases of Hana Awaka Sake to the stupid Americans.  We need some copy on our label telling them about our shit.

Ozeki Marketing Director: Sex sells in America.  We will call our sake Sparkling Flower, like the stripper’s hoo-ha. 

Ad Executive: We will test that name in ten focus groups and have our research results done in three months. We will charge you a dragon boatload of money only to confirm Sparkling Flower is the perfect name.

Ozeki Marketing Director: Great!

Copywriter: We need to bullet point the Hana Awaka Sake strengths so the Americanos will know how to enjoy our beverage.  How about this:

You are drinking our sake.  You will love long long time.  Your tongue will lap up the Sparkling Flower of bursting sweetness.  Bubbles will give you happy ending.

Ad Executive: I love it.  It says Hana Awaka.

Ozeki Marketing Director: Let’s go thru a few dozen rounds before we settle on something. 

Ozeki Product Manager: We must tell the Gringos when to drink our sake.  We don’t want them to drink our product during work!

Now imagine round after round of writing and editing. Until finally the executives at Ozeki knew they hit paydirt.  Copy on the label that is useful and enticing.  I’m sure the agency was paid handsomely for this.