Adjectival advertising

Admittedly, I know next to nothing about business.  I couldn't take any business courses in college because I couldn't get past the weed-out statistics and calculus courses taught by sub-continental graduate assistants whose curried accents made math that much more difficult for me.  I don't know that I would have been any good in business, since I'm too cynical and lack the schmooze factor that so many in business seem to possess.

But today I was listening to the radio on my way into work and as the host read the copy, something jumped out at me that has oftentimes made me wonder.  The ad was for some sandwich made by a franchise and it referred to a harvest wheat bun.  Perhaps I'm being too picky, but isn't all wheat that's used for food harvested?  Or is there some special strain of wheat called Harvest Wheat? 

From what I've been able to glean from those knowledgeable about marketing, the way advertisers market is to appeal to our basest senses -- taste, smell, touch, sound and sight.  That's why the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue is so popular.  No heterosexual man I know cares about the latest swimwear and doesn't equate it to sports.  But beautiful models in various stages of undress?  Any of them will go for that everytime.  And SI reaps it's prurient profits from the sale of that edition of its magazine.

Countless women's fashion magazines combine both sight and smell with pages filled with pictures of slinky models next to inserts of fragrances that can be scratched and sniffed. 

But it's more the descriptions that crack me up. For example, how many times has the phrase hand-dipped shakes been heard?  First of all, is there another way to dip a shake?  I know they can be extruded from a machine, but is there another way to dip a shake?  And furthermore, how is a hand-dipped shake any better?  Isn't it the process of blending that makes a shake?  What if I shot the ice cream into the blender with a T-shirt gun?  Would that make it better?

Hand carved.  Another of my favorite descriptions.  Unless a computer is guiding a knife, is there any other way for meat to be cut?  One way or the other, a hand is going to be involved.  What makes that so special?

Pan-fried. Oven roasted.   Oven baked.  When we hear these descriptions, our mouths water.  But why exactly?  What's the difference between them and fried, roasted or baked?  Aren't they, like Harvest Wheat, just redundant or unnecessary descriptions?

There are plenty of other such descriptions that elude me right now.  But it amuses me that ad execs wax nostalgic, or culinary, or fashionable when if what they said was broken down, one would realize just how stupid the line really is.

Then again, when the phrase from whence is thought to sound elevated by even some of the better writers out there, it's not that surprising that we have these phrases in adverstising.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles