Icon Factory Icon Factory (Day 1)
I haven’t been so entertained by a web site in far too long. It’s geared towards web designers, but even if you’re not one it’s still funny. I especially love day 2.
It’s amazing to me that silent icon people with nothing but speech bubble icons are able to convey so much information. Day 2 made me laugh out loud when I realized what was missing in the mobile home. The trailing toilet paper was pure comedy gold.
I can’t wait for days 5 and 6.
Note: Make sure you can play quicktime movies.
(via simplebits.com)
In case you aren’t familiar with tempur pedic, it’s a company that makes beds out of a shocking new space age material that allows you to jump up and down wildly on one side while a glass of red wine rests gently on the other, unperturbed.
You see, everyone needs to jump up and down wildly on their bed while a glass of red wine rests on the other side. This is a very common occurrence in many homes across the country.
I requested a free sample of the foamy goodness that is tempur pedic. They sent it without delay, and I think it even came with a video touting the merits of the space age foam, but I never bothered to watch it. If I had owned a pet hamster, the sample would have made a lovely temper pedic mattress, but since I have no pet, I didn’t have any use for it. After squeezing it a few times to see how resiliant it was, and resting my head gently on it to see how it felt, I threw it away.
Then the mail started coming. And coming, and coming and coming. It hasn’t stopped in over two years. They have sent me so many advertisements that I believe it would be more cost effective for them to have simply given me one of their $3,500 beds. I even moved, thinking that would throw them off my trail. The ads keep coming.
The flier says things like, “Dan Hersam - A better bed awaits you…” that makes me a bit nervous. Are they saying it’s waiting for me right now? Is it hiding somewhere in my bedroom? When I go upstairs to sleep, is it going to leap out from behind the curtains?
I’ve also noticed that their ads always refer to me by my full name. This is a little silly, because no one talks to people in normal conversation using full names. No one except tempur pedic I guess.
“Dan Hersam, you don’t have to take our word for it…You can try it before you buy it, at OUR RISK!“
They put a lot of emphasis on the fact that I can try it before I buy it, then shout that it’s at their risk (underlined of course), but I fail to see what they’re risking. Perhaps the risk is that they have spent so much money sending me advertisements that their entire company will fail if they can’t sell me one of their foamy beds.
Other attempts at selling me on their product include telling me about the competition. This is what they have to say.
THEIRS: Fancy on the outside.
OURS: Miracle on the inside.
So the competition is fancy on the outside. Got it. But tempur pedic has a miracle on the inside? I remind you that I received a sample foam bed (albeit mouse-sized). I examined it quite closely in fact, and I feel safe in saying that there were no miracles to behold.
Let’s move on.
“These lab images prove Tempur-Pedic is the best bed you can buy!”
The images look like a wireframe of the rocky mountains and do nothing to prove anything to me, except that the foams seems to have fewer glorious snow-capped peaks than a conventional mattress.
Another effort to win me over was a strange move; certainly not what I expected. They named their beds. You may think this perfectly normal, until you see the names.
GrandBed. CelebrityBed. EuroBed. RhapsodyBed. DeluxeBed. ClassicBed. OriginalBed.
Rhapsody bed? Euro bed? Celebrity bed? And what’s with the use of camel caps?
The marketing folks are trying their darndest to sell these things, but in my opinion, if you have to work so hard to sell something, there’s probably a reason for it.
