| Date: | April 10, 2007 / year-entry #126 |
| Tags: | non-computer |
| Orig Link: | https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20070410-14/?p=27293 |
| Comments: | 27 |
| Summary: | Taiwanese Bluetooth technology company Bluetake has an odd picture on their front page. It's three women drinking alcohol, with plenty more bottles in front of them. Not a single Bluetooth device in sight. Maybe Bluetooth just makes alcohol taste better. (Yes, I know it's a stock photo, but what's with the alcohol?) |
Taiwanese Bluetooth technology company Bluetake has an odd picture on their front page. It's three women drinking alcohol, with plenty more bottles in front of them. Not a single Bluetooth device in sight. Maybe Bluetooth just makes alcohol taste better. (Yes, I know it's a stock photo, but what's with the alcohol?) |
Comments (27)
Comments are closed. |
Bringing Enhanced Enjoyment?
Couldn’t they add "Remotely" or a similar R term and make their page spell out "BEER?"
Hey, have you ever actually tried to get a Bluetooth device to work with a computer? If you had, you’d know that the alcohol (or some other sedative) is mandatory.
(See how good I was by saying "a computer" and not "Windows"? D’oh!)
I tried and it worked first time. As for the B E E R, hats off Bob, it was the first thing on my mind too when I opened that page.
I think they are all wearing bluetooth devices but the webmaster posted the wrong pic from the photo shoot. Note that you cannot see one ear on each of the women. It’s like when you take a pic and get someone with their eyes closed.
If you squint, you can make out that one of the women has a blue tooth. There is no truth in the rumour (spready by a rival company) that the other two have yellow teeth.
Surrogate advertising maybe? Perhaps the country of origin has banned all bluetooth ads ;-).
Surrogate advertising maybe? Perhaps the country of origin has banned all bluetooth ads ;-).
None of the women are Taiwanese or even Asian. Wonder why a Taiwanese company choose that pic. (It’s probably a stock photo, BTW)
Many IT companies have home pages with similar eye-candy, usually a Flash intro.
That’s OK — our company (which does metal stamping) has a dumb stock baseball image on our home page. The fact that that has absolutely nothing to do with metal stampings didn’t stop the generic marketing company that we outsourced our home-page-creation to. ;-)
(That’s what you generally get when you outsource that kind of thing, in other words.)
I can see their marketing department now:
"Ok, men 20-30 are our biggest customer, so chicks plus beer = profit! Steve, do your best!"
Probably they diden`t think about it. Just took the picture, without a deeper mesage.
TravisO is correct. It doesn’t matter what they’re selling. When have hot chicks and alcohol steered us wrong before? Never!
It’s not just the booze that’s odd. Almost the entire thing sits in a single image. If the width of the browser is too small, you get a horizontal scrollbar. If it’s too wide, it looks cut off.
In Opera Mini, atleast the imagemap part is preserved and can be easily navigated, but in NetFront with SmartFit on, the entire image is resized and the text becomes illegible. With SmartFit off, the image is readable but navigation is very difficult (I can’t get to Asia or Europe).
Also notice the copyright statement is in the middle, and it’s not updated. Atleast when you put it in a prominent place, use a date function so you don’t have to manually change it every Jan 1st. But it’s an image, so it’s not that simple in this case.
Then in the bottom, there’s a visitor counter. Besides being an image as well, its rather pointless.
I got it, the point is that their Bluetooth devices are so unobtrusively small that you can’t even see them!
This company’s still trying to use the promise of sex with girls to sell its products to males.
I wonder who talked them out of having the girls in bikini’s looking sweaty on the beach with their alcohol?
Luckily, being a girl, I don’t purchase with my dick so I can actually make decisions based on products, thank heavens they never draped good looking men over cars Or I’d be driving something other than the Honda civic.
The patriarchy never ceases to amaze me.
Guess what? It works.
Hey, neither do I. Those swipe strips are narrow!
I went over to IBTP once or twice – it’s amusing in a sad sort of way. Basically, it’s a bunch of pseudofeminists congratulating each other on being oppressed while rejecting anything that challenges their worldview. In 30 years, every one of them will have 15 cats and no human contact.
Never mind. I went to the site and it looks more like normal women laughing about some random crap than a sex comeon. Wendy, you gotta get your eyes checked. This looks more like they’re selling to women – buy our nebulous stuff and you can sit around and gab with your friends what with all the new free time.
Lots of asian websites seem to value visual appeal over content. It’s as if a lot of people still think the web is an 8×10 glossy.
[sorry about multiposting, Raymond]
http://www.bluetakeusa.com/p-48-bt400gl-bluetooth-mini-headset.aspx
Check out the flash ad – they’re pitching the bluetooth stuff as fashion/tech, which is fine by me. I’m tired of all the borg-lite people walking around with glowing blue ears. At least these things are vaguely subtle.
*shrug* They are all cute – whats the problem? It got you to talk about them :)
Drinking too much red wine gives my teeth a bluish color: so I’ve always joked that bluetooth is what you get when you’ve had too much red wine.
@Wendy
"Luckily, being a girl, I don’t purchase with my dick so I can actually make decisions based on products, thank heavens they never draped good looking men over cars Or I’d be driving something other than the Honda civic."
Honda civics are quite environmentally friendly though, not far off a Prius IIRC. In fact if you factor in the energy required to build one, I think they’re probably slightly better.
So driving one will make the world a better place for future generations – i.e your or at least someone else’s kids. So sex is involved but just with a few more levels of indirection.
I do find it mildly amusing that the guys can use the sexist thing in a humerous way without being criticised (see below examples). yet when little self-confessed female me makes a comment remark from an alternative perspective I get told to get my eyes checked and that in 30years time I will have 15 cats and no human contact. Sigh, better start stocking up on cat food now then ;-)
Un questioned humour in this thread (prior to my meagre contribution) that was based on a male sexual perspective:
TravisO: "It doesn’t matter what they’re selling. When have hot chicks and alcohol steered us wrong before? Never!
John: "TravisO is correct. It doesn’t matter what they’re selling. When have hot chicks and alcohol steered us wrong before? Never!"
MarkA: *shrug* They are all cute – whats the problem? It got you to talk about them :)
"
Cooney, Joel had a nice article about that not so long ago. Maybe it was linked from here before, or it landed in my inbox. Anyways, here’s the friendly article:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/12/15.html
(The first result when you search dna there)
I bought several of BlueTake’s products, and, so far, ZERO females have requested to drink alcohol with me. I’ll give it a few more days, but I’m thinking I need to return it, because this is obviously false advertising.
I think a Nitpick’s Corner is needed here:
Raymond does not endorse patriarchy or sex.
There, *slaps hands*, done and done.
Honestly, the girls, though not having anything to do with the product in question, are, if the people using the shot were paying attention, good for playing both genders.
It’s not like they are stripped down to bikini’s spraying their booze over each other. But they are women, and men will think, however subconsciously "oh, I associate this product with attractive women, hurrah". Women, on the other hand, will see it as "oh, women, like me, enjoy this product, so I’ll enjoy it too". Two demographics with one stone.
Why focus on the alcohol, Ray? That picture has women, a sofa, smiling, glass, clthes and so on in it. None of those items is bluetooth specific, yet you focus on the alcohol. Sounds like you’re bringing some baggage to the picture that’s interfering with your assessment.
Addendum: In fact, for all we know those could be non-alcholic drinks.