Episode Transcript
Don Mock 0:19
Alright. Episode 122, we’re back.
Rob Broadfoot 0:22
122.
Don Mock 0:23
122 Of these bad boys. We’re running out of things to talk about or are we?
Rob Broadfoot 0:30
Yeaheah. So I think today we were, we were chit chatting a little bit. And you know it, we’re, I’m working on a project right now, and I won’t get into the specifics of it for purposes of this conversation, but it’s the idea that, you know, nothing kills a bad product faster than great advertising, right?
Don Mock 0:54
I love that line,
Rob Broadfoot 0:54
if we think about that line and we think about, or just in general, the power of advertising, and, and potentially, you know, in this particular case, we have a client, they have a wonderful product. And dare I say, the advertising has been so effective that it’s overwhelmed operations to a degree, and it’s caused a bit of a problem.
Don Mock 1:16
Well can you grow yourself out of business by going too fast, too fast? yeah, and
Rob Broadfoot 1:22
the answer is yes. The good news is they’re in great shape. They’re gonna be fine. But because of that, we’ve had to deal with, I’ll call it a PR, you know, customer service kind of issue.
Don Mock 1:33
Hey, where’s my stuff?
Rob Broadfoot 1:34
We are so good at what we do. So effective. No, but it got it got us thinking about just sort of the power of advertising and good products, bad products
Don Mock 1:44
And it is a superpower.
Rob Broadfoot 1:45
And it is a superpower,
Don Mock 1:46
yeah, yeah. Well, I always say, I’ve been saying this for years. I’ve probably said it on the pod. It’s the power of persuasion, right. It’s, you don’t know you need something until we tell you you need something, right, right? And then you’re like, Oh, my God, I need that. How did I live without that? I mean, that’s, that’s the sign of a successful, you know, meeting of a great product and a great message, right?
Rob Broadfoot 2:07
Right it’s I didn’t know I need that. Or do I just make it so popular that everybody just Yeah, by virtue of what everybody else has I have to have this, sure, whatever it is
Don Mock 2:18
absolutely, absolutely,
Rob Broadfoot 2:19
like the pet rock, so we were talking about just sort of novelty objects,
Don Mock 2:27
classic advertising, but not from, like, a dorky advertising, historical not like the lemon ad, you know, and the all the others, you know, right? Just like Americana, sort of, you know, classic products and ads things that have lasted the test of time.
Rob Broadfoot 2:43
Yeah, and we were, and we were talking about products that are, I don’t want to say, worthless, but, but just novelty, just complete novelty items. They don’t do anything.
Don Mock 2:54
Well, I think, I think my list of products is actually worthless. Maybe they are worthless,
Rob Broadfoot 2:58
yeah. And we immediately went to, or I immediately, anyway, went to the pet rock. Yeah, which is, wow, we’re selling rocks to people
Don Mock 3:08
It’s packaging.
Rob Broadfoot 3:09
I mean, packaging.
Don Mock 3:10
Why do you need to package a rock? I mean, I guess, because you need a place to put the barcode and the and the price sticker, right? Well, how much was a pet rock back in the day? and you had a pet rock I never had a pet rock
Rob Broadfoot 3:21
Not only did I have a pet rock, but then, then they, they branched out, and then I had a rock concert.
Don Mock 3:26
Wait, what?
Rob Broadfoot 3:27
Oh yeah, I had a rock concert, which was a, there was about a, I’ll call it a flat, like a skipping rock about the size of a, maybe, maybe a baseball, a circumference, and it had tiny little pebbles glued on top of it. They were painted all different colors, and then part of a popsicle stick on the back that said rock concert on it
Don Mock 3:49
Oh, my Lord. and that came in a box, the rock?
Rob Broadfoot 3:52
Oh yeah.
Don Mock 3:53
Oh my god, yeah. Now, this is early 80s I assume
Rob Broadfoot 3:56
Yeah late 70s early 80s.
Don Mock 3:58
Okay, so you started with a pet rock, and then somewhere along the line, got a rock concert. That’s hilarious.
Rob Broadfoot 4:02
I still have the rock concert.
Don Mock 4:04
No way.
Rob Broadfoot 4:04
I do it’s in my house, it’s in a box somewhere but I 100% have it.
Don Mock 4:10
You don’t still have the original packaging for those things. I can’t imagine you do, right? I mean, they got torn out of the box and put on a shelf or something,
Rob Broadfoot 4:16
Yeah but that got me thinking about, like, okay, where, would you find when I was growing up anyway, late 70s, early 80s, where would you find all of these magical, nonsensical gifts? And I would always go to the back of I was a boy scouts, boys Life magazine. And the back of boys Life magazine had just this wonderful
Don Mock 4:37
it was a grid.
Rob Broadfoot 4:38
It was a grid of just the most ridiculous things you could ever, you could ever buy.
Don Mock 4:44
Oh, it’s all the stuff that’s, I mean, I’m a comic book guy, and it’s all the stuff that was in the comic books the same, same deal.
Rob Broadfoot 4:48
So were they in like, Mad Magazine too? I think they were.
Don Mock 4:52
Yeah, there was the same set it was. I mean, I don’t want to go through my whole list right now, but it’s the X ray glasses.
Rob Broadfoot 4:56
Oh, yeah.
Don Mock 4:57
Send us $1 like, put $1 in an envelop and we’re gonna send you cardboard glasses that have a little hole in them, right? And it’s like, whoo, you know. And it’s like, you can see, you know, through walls, and you can see through people’s clothes, and you can see the bones
Rob Broadfoot 5:11
every little boy wanted that for obvious reasons.
Don Mock 5:15
Yeah, it’s what? Like, No one’s buying x I mean, you know, X ray glasses for $1 in 1982 like that. Doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. You know,
Rob Broadfoot 5:24
you know, it also was a, was a big item on those was the, and it stood the test of time, is the classic whoopee cushion, you could always get a whoopee cushion out of this thing
Don Mock 5:33
there was another, yeah, Well, we still got those things still exist.
Rob Broadfoot 5:36
Yeah go to Richards.
Don Mock 5:38
Is Richards still there in Atlanta? I don’t know if it’s still there.
Rob Broadfoot 5:42
There’s a in Peachtree battle shopping center. There’s a store called Richards, like, Richard dimer, Richard variety, Richard variety store, yeah, and they have all the class they used, if they’re still in business, somebody, fact check us. But they used to have all just the classic novelty games and things like that,
Don Mock 5:58
yeah. It kind of was like a five and dime, like, it’s like a, like a, like a general store, there’s like a, yeah, in a city, yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 6:03
You want a balsa wood airplane? go there
Don Mock 6:06
with the little rubber band thing that, yeah, wind up or wind up, yeah, oh yeah, absolutely.
Rob Broadfoot 6:10
You need a hand buzzer?
Don Mock 6:11
Well your pet rock. I will meet your pet rock and raise you sea monkeys. You know sea monkeys? I never had sea monkeys, but this magical it was, you know, buy a kit of sea monkeys, and I think they were like little dried out brine shrimp, you know. And then you put them in an aquarium, and then maybe they come back to life or something, you know. But they sold this whole magical underworld kingdom of sea
Rob Broadfoot 6:40
I remember that they exist, but I don’t remember them at all, if that makes sense. Like, you know, I don’t remember what a sea monkey was, but I remember
Don Mock 6:47
was a teeny little speck of dirt, but it was a teeny little shrimp thing.
Rob Broadfoot 6:52
Was it a real shrimp?
Don Mock 6:53
Yes, it’s a real brine shrimp, is what I understand, right? it came in, like a little bag or something, and you’re supposed to just pour the bag of like, it looks like sawdust, like, just pour the bag of sawdust in in your aquarium, and then, boom, there’s magical underworld. Well, I think they kind of come back to life and then, and then they swim around
Rob Broadfoot 7:11
in a shrimp coma,
Don Mock 7:16
It’s, it’s the magical world of advertising does not line up with the product. I mean, the ad is this unbelievable illustration of the sea monkey king with his beautiful sea monkey queen and all this magical stuff happening, right? And it’s like, that’s not what the actual product is.
Rob Broadfoot 7:33
Unlike, you know, McDonald’s and Burger King advertising, where the burger always looks exactly, exactly, exactly like it does on the ad.
Don Mock 7:39
I think, I think even still, to this day, people are getting in trouble with that, you know, like, I think we talked about this, didn’t we talk about Taco Bell is geting sued because it was like, no, no, you over promised how much great you know, meat is, yes, is in this burrito or whatever?
Rob Broadfoot 7:54
Yeah. Well, that coffee was way too hot.
Don Mock 7:56
No, you bring you bring up a good point. Well, another one on my list, again, from that time, I’d be curious as to what the versions are now. I mean, it’s all Instagram temu ads, probably, and what the junk? You know what? I mean? Well, yeah, but I’m gonna throw out the chia pet.
Rob Broadfoot 8:14
I never had one, did you have one?
Don Mock 8:17
No, no. I was trying to think if we had one in our family. I never was given one personally. But, you know, great advertising jingle, not a pet, just like your pet rock, it was like a little sculpture that grew the sprouts. Yeah, type of sprout and you watered it and it grew
Rob Broadfoot 8:36
a plant, yeah.
Don Mock 8:36
It was like, it’s a plant. We’ve rebranded plants, and named them but you had to mix the goo and then put the goo on the ceramic pot or whatever, right? And the pot was shaped like, you know, porcupine or like, like, different animals. And then there was even one that had, like a head of hair. It was like you grow out, like the Bob Ross Afro of sprouts or whatever. So
Rob Broadfoot 8:58
it is true, though, that that Instagram, the socials, Instagram and Tiktok are the new back of boys Life magazine there’s just crap, just junkjunk, absolute garbage.
Don Mock 8:59
Yeah same with Twitter now too. It’s rife with just horrible products that that are not what you think they are. So have you ever bought anything off Instagram and been disappointed?
Rob Broadfoot 9:23
I have, because
Don Mock 9:25
I know you got shoes or whatever off Instagram and you love those shoes. You wearing them right now, right? Yeah. So I’m not knocking I mean advertising works. We’re not anti advertising. But have you ever bought anything on socials and been disappointed? It just happened to me.
Rob Broadfoot 9:41
the only other thing that I that I think I found on the socials was, this is weird, but a hat company because they make hats for people with tiny heads. I always joke that like you remember that great scene in Beetlejuice with the guy with a shrunken head in the waiting room? that’s me. I have this tiny, tiny
Don Mock 10:04
it doesn’t look small but normal hats don’t fit your head.
Rob Broadfoot 10:09
Normal hats do not fit my head. So I received an Instagram account because they have my demographic profile and everything else. Hey, hats for people with small heads. And I totally bought one.
Don Mock 10:25
Okay, yeah, but were you disappointed, though, is my question
Rob Broadfoot 10:29
There were actually two different companies and I bought one from each andnd one of them was totally didn’t, didn’t, didn’t fit the bill, dare I say, and the other one totally did.
Don Mock 10:42
Okay, there you go, yeah,
Rob Broadfoot 10:43
but that’s the kind of stuff that I bought off Instagram. Like, I haven’t bought anything that’s like a kind of off the wall novelty, what I would consider a novelty item, or something like that. You had a disappointment?
Don Mock 10:56
I bought a t-shirt, graphic tee. yeah, it was like, you know, surfing around, and there’s a lot of scams out there that there’s a lot of, like, oh your credit card company immediately, like, blocked that checkoutheckout process or whatever that, right? Because, like, Oh, this is too good to be true. Like, 100 T shirts for $2 you know, like, like, whatever,
Rob Broadfoot 11:14
yeah, eight albums for a penny?
Don Mock 11:19
I was literally just telling my children about the Columbia record house.
Rob Broadfoot 11:23
I have that blue shirt I bought the retro Columbia House shirt.
Don Mock 11:26
you don’t wear it enough. You should wear that more often.
Rob Broadfoot 11:28
I’m gonna wear it tomorrow.
Don Mock 11:28
But the 12 CDs for a penny, but, but remember, you had to buy three CDs at full price, right? And not only was it full price, it was like 18.99 per CD.
Rob Broadfoot 11:38
Yeah, it’s still a good deal though.
Don Mock 11:40
You know, yeah. Did you ever? Did you ever you did it? Did you ever do the
Rob Broadfoot 11:45
I think it was cassettes when I did it back in the 80s.
Don Mock 11:47
Oh I did both. Dude, I did the cassette and then CDs came out. I did the CDs.
Rob Broadfoot 11:51
I think I just did cassette.
Don Mock 11:52
Did you, did you follow up your end of the bargain? Did you do the buy the three albums after the fact? Do you remember?
Rob Broadfoot 11:58
I don’t remember.
Don Mock 11:58
Yeah, I did. I was scared they were gonna come get me. So like peer pressure. I just, I did it, you know but still you come out ahead, you know?
Rob Broadfoot 12:06
Yeah do the math, you still come out ahead. Yeah, I don’t remember if I bought the other ones or not. I probably didn’t.
Don Mock 12:11
that’s a good one, the Columbia. Where were those advertised? I feel like everyone in like, Junior High there you go. Okay, uh, good old fashioned print
Rob Broadfoot 12:22
you know, rip magazine, all the great 80s
Don Mock 12:26
Guitar World maybe
Rob Broadfoot 12:28
Spin Magazine,Bob Guccione Jr, just to piss off your dad
Don Mock 12:34
Oh boy. Here we go. Oh boy. Anyway, back to my thing. I bought T shirts. I bought, like, Oh, these are cool looking t shirt, yeah, hey, where are my T shirts?
Rob Broadfoot 12:44
You never got them?
Don Mock 12:45
Oh they finally came. And I’m like, What’s this? What’s this package in the mail that’s from, like, just some dude, like, some dude’s name from Rancho Cucamonga, California, right? Not that I’m anti Rancho Cucamonga. Shout out, Rancho.
Rob Broadfoot 13:00
I thought you just made that up
Don Mock 13:01
No That’s a real place, you know? And I’m like, What is this? And I open it up, and I’m because it doesn’t have the name of the company, the name, and I’m like, oh, it’s the shirts, awesome. And I open it, and I’m like, Oh no. It’s like, you’ve got a shirt it’s printed on the shirt. It’s like, a printed thing, right? This is, like, bad heat transfer artwork where you see the seam and it looks like someone cut, like, the edge of a shitty scissor, yeah? And, you know? And it’s like, oh, you heat pressed. Like, this is a cool design. It’s this Raven, actually is a cool design. It’s a raven that’s like, turning his head and he’s got headphones on, but the headphones are music notes. But the way it sets in, it looks cool. I was like, Oh, this is a kind of a cool graphic,
Rob Broadfoot 13:45
but it was a total iron on situation
Don Mock 13:47
Oh, God. It’s just like, you bought, like, crappy Gildan, you know, T shirts, and then heat, press something on. It’s like, full, crunchy, shiny, like, I’m like, Oh, I don’t think I’m ever gonna wear this, this is so dissapointing
Rob Broadfoot 14:02
you know me and T-shirt printing.
Don Mock 14:04
Oh, dude, it’s worse than your worst.
Rob Broadfoot 14:06
Did you send it back or no. you guys are not gonna send me my money back, yeah, yeah.
Don Mock 14:11
I mean, it’s whatever, you know, I mean, I mean, let me put it this way too. They were cheap shirts. They’re like, you know, it’s not like, yeah, there’s no like, it’s not like, there were 35 bucks for a shirt or anything like that. But I was like, oh, disappointed, yeah, god Columbia record house, that was, that’s a classic one.
Rob Broadfoot 14:29
that was a good one. And I don’t know. I have to believe that the reason that they did that was
Don Mock 14:39
long, dramatic pause.
Rob Broadfoot 14:40
Well, I’m just trying to think why they would do that. Because they’re not making money on that. Was it to pump up album sales numbers?
Don Mock 14:47
I have no idea.
Rob Broadfoot 14:48
they are not making ofmoney on that. They’re losing money on that deal
Don Mock 14:51
No andAnd then we had buddies. I mean, I had buddies that, like, would use like, 10 different names, yeah, you know, to the same address. And I’m like, Dude, you guys are gonna get in trouble. I mean, I don’t know what. Trouble means, yeah, like the 80s
Rob Broadfoot 15:01
the Columbia police are gonna come get you, yeah, I think it probably had something to do with boosting record sales.
Don Mock 15:06
Probably was because you couldn’t go deep in that catalog, right? I mean, from what I recall, it was like, Okay, it’s Def Leppard and Pyromania, you know, it’s GNR. It’s, you know what? I mean, it was kind of the top, you know, 50 albums or whatever, that of that time period, you know, so, but you couldn’t go deep cuts. It wasn’t like, Oh, I’m getting this, you know, yeah, you know, other album or whatever, so.
Rob Broadfoot 15:30
And then there was all of the like, I mean, kind of, kind of, kind of, like that. But it wasn’t Columbia House. It wasn’t like that. But remember, it was like, all the, like, just jock jams. Like all the compilations, there’s a whole series of compilation albums.
Don Mock 15:45
Now, this is music, yeah, right, that was the thing.
Now kids bops
feel like those were television commercials, though, weren’t they? Yeah? Because it was like, Oh, get this album. You get the CNC Music Factory song on there. You get
Rob Broadfoot 15:59
Pump up the jam.
Don Mock 16:00
Yeah, exactly, yeah, all that kind of stadium rock, yeah, Jock Jack. Yeah, that’s funny. So the other classic one I always remember seeing forever, and again, I’m an old comic book aficionado, right? Is the is the get strong ads, right? Send in, send in this thing, and it’s, and it’s the old illustration of, like, you know, like, Jack LaLanne, like, oh, with his arms out, like, Oh, I’m like, ripped or whatever. And the boy getting sand kicked in his face at the beach, like, the little drawing, yeah, you know what I mean. And it was like, stop being a wimp. You loser reading a comic book.
Rob Broadfoot 16:32
What did you get?
Don Mock 16:33
I think you got, like, an instruction manual on, like, on, like, like, a workout, like, a workout, yeah? And it was like, hey, send in money. We’re gonna send you how to become fit, you know, so that you can get the girls and not be a weakling, you know. Now, this is like, 1960s kind of funny ads, you know, in the back of magazines and stuff. Like,
Rob Broadfoot 16:51
a lot of magic tricks too.
Don Mock 16:52
Oh, I wrote that one down, magic tricks. Yeah, yeah, it was, you know, impress your friends, you know.
Rob Broadfoot 17:00
there’s a great local Atlanta shop called Eddie’s trick shop.
Don Mock 17:04
Yeah, that’s…The square used to be on the square?
Rob Broadfoot 17:09
I think I read that it recently closed down for good like, a month ago or something like, recently. There used to be one in
Don Mock 17:20
Am I allowed to say, I’m surprised they made it this long I mean, who goes to a magic shop
Rob Broadfoot 17:23
right where peach tree and Piedmont come together on Roswell and turn into Roswell road they’re in that, in that, which call it little, little strip mall right there. It used to be one right in there, and Eddie’s trick shop, that was a good spot,
Don Mock 17:39
All right. Well, circling back around to Richard’s variety, it looks like they’re still open over and, I mean, a quick Google search lets me know that they’re still there. So, yeah, craziness, right? Any other interesting, wacky, sort of classic ads that promote total BS, projects or not projects, but products and
Rob Broadfoot 18:00
I don’t, I don’t know. Man, I do think that it’s we should do a little bit of research and go see what we can find on I bet my kids have ordered some Tiktok, something or another, something or other things that I’m unaware of. Yeah,
Don Mock 18:18
but yeah. But I also think, like I’m interrupting something, like, I think they’re savvier than maybe we were at that age. Meaning, like, I’ve had, you know, I’ve had my kids order things that they knew were knockoffs from China, yeah, going into it, right? You know? So they knew they’re like, Oh, is it gonna like? They know that it’s something’s not correct? It’s not like, Oh, we’re, we’re selling, you, you know, the exact same thing at a, you know, 90% discount. They kind of, know, going in, hey, this, I’m throwing the dice on this one, you know, and it’s gonna take like, 12 weeks to get here
Rob Broadfoot 18:52
so, yeah, no, no, that you’re right. And there’s, we have a lot of girls in our house. So shein, that company shein, like, S, H, E, I N, they’re massive, massive. And I think they’re out of China. And their clothes are, like, $1 I mean, it’s like, the cheapest stuff. And same thing the kids know, like, oh, it’s gonna be a horribly made shirt. But if I can just get one wear out of it. It’s worth it, because it costs like $3
Don Mock 19:19
okay, yeah, yeah. There’s been some shoes that were bought, you know, some expensive athletic, you know, I mean, like, trying to see if it’s of the same quality,
Rob Broadfoot 19:29
but, like, off brand?
Don Mock 19:30
yeah, off brand, you know, but, but then it has the same look and feel as the other one, but it’s not, you know, like, and there have been some clothes, but for the most part, that’s about it on our house, yeah, yeah. And then my son’s got me buying things off of eBay. But you know, you get, you know what you’re getting into, yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah, international sellers, all right. Well, a little bit of a trip down memory lane for those, you know, 70s, 80s and those sort of classic funny ads and commercials. And and whatnot, you know, the rest of the stuff I remember, it was just toy ads, you know what? I mean, lots of toys, toy ads, you know, which I don’t think they really, that really exists. I mean, we don’t even have toys r us anymore.
Rob Broadfoot 20:10
I don’t think Saturday morning is what Saturday morning cartoons aren’t what they used to be. And that’s when you just got inundated with, yeah, all the things, yeah.
Don Mock 20:17
Well, kids don’t even watch they just watch YouTube, So they get, you know, they get whatever they get in their their algorithm, you know, yeah, hats for people with small heads, you know, things like that. Everything specific, you know,
Rob Broadfoot 20:27
It works thoughthough it did work.
Don Mock 20:29
Well, here’s the good news. You got, you got a hat out of it. One of them didn’t work, but you got another good one.
Rob Broadfoot 20:34
That’s right, that’s right,
Don Mock 20:34
Well, we’ll wrap it up for today.
Rob Broadfoot 20:36
All right. Well, you know where to find us, on the interwebs, www.mocktheagency.com, or of course, on the socials @mocktheagency We are not hard to find, and we will talk to you for Episode 123, next time.
Don Mock 20:48
123, bye. See you.
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