Foglio's Field Notes

Leif Utne's random rants, musings and meditations

Archive for the ‘flattery’ Category

john.he.is Video Lampoons McCain on Iraq

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This parody of the popular pro-Obama ‘Yes We Can’ video is so brilliant, I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. Enjoy! 

Written by leifutne

February 11, 2008 at 4:37 pm

“World-changing” is now a marketing term

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My friends over at www.worldchanging.com will get a kick out of this. The inside front cover of the July/August issue of Sierra features a two-page ad for Honda’s Civic Hybrid. Under the banner “Environmentology” (not quite sure what that means, but it sounds nice) artistically rendered in images of plants, the company rightly touts its 32-year history as a fuel-efficiency innovator.

Civic Hybrid ad

Here’s the passage that caught my eye:

Civic Hybrid ad (detail)

In 1974, Honda introduced the ingeniously simple Civic CVCC. World-changing (sic) for its fuel efficiency and low emissions, the CVCC demonstrated our spirited commitment to environmentally responsible technology…

“World-changing”? Maybe. While Honda has been a leader in green car technology for a long time, it’s important to note that average fuel economy across the industry, even for Hondas, is unsustainably low. Appopriation and imitation are of course the sincerest forms of flattery. Kudos should go at the very least to Alex and Jamais at WC for changing the lexicon. It’s nice to see Madison Avenue’s taking notice.

Written by leifutne

June 20, 2006 at 8:58 pm