Wednesday, May 6, 2009

The Isthmus Gland

If you watch any television at all, you will probably have noticed a plethora of commercials for a variety of ‘magical’ weight loss products. All of these commercials claim that if you take their supplement and ‘eat right and exercise,’ you’re practically guaranteed* to lose weight.

*Supplement is only to be used under a doctor’s orders. Studies have shown that the supplement, if combined with diet and exercise, will cause weight loss. The supplement is just that good. Seriously. The diet and exercise have almost nothing to do with it. Because everyone knows, diet and exercise just won’t cut it. You need a REALLY expensive pill to provide the real weight loss magic.

These supplements generally claim to stimulate some portion of the anatomy, but the funny thing is, they never claim to stimulate the same part. One pill flexes your adrenal glands, another constricts your duodenum, while yet another gets your pituitary in a headlock and makes it produce whatever the hell a pituitary produces.

NOTE: I love the word ‘duodenum.’ It’s (almost) my favorite body part. I don’t actually know what it does, though I like to think it makes us unpalatable to hostile aliens intent on consuming the human race for food.

You’d think that that if there were a magic weight loss organ, modern science would have found it and used it to make boatloads of cash. “Eat all you want” the ads would blare. “We’ll just hyper stimulate your Isthmus Gland and you’ll never gain a pound.” And while they’re at it, they’ll tickle your Fjord Prospect and you’ll grow three inches, while gently caressing your Hippo Conflux to make you irresistible to super models.

Obviously, the thing that actually works is eating right and exercising. But that’s boring and difficult, which is how these companies make their money.

Though having your Fjord Prospect ticked sounds like a good time.

Cheers,
-Jason

6 comments:

Sharon T Rose said...

In case you're bored, here's the definition of your favorite body part:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/duodenum


One of my favorite words is phenolphthalein. It has five consonants in a row.

Jason Janicki said...

Your word is much harder to say, so you win :)

Oh, yeah, I do know what the duodenum does. I just have an (over) active imagination :)

TX_Val said...

Yeah, but you're forgetting the marketing target here. Stupid, lazy, and self conscious. The bad part is, marketing people know, stupid doesn't always mean stupid, it just means bad snap decisions. How many times have you been to the market and see a sign that says.. TWO FOR A DOLLAR, and below that it says.. 50cents each.
But people are steadily grabbing up 2 at a time.

My poor mom buys crap because it's on sale. Even when she doesn't really need it.
Then if it's cheap crap and it breaks within the first few minutes of my kids playing with it, she just says *shrug* Well it was only a dollar.

Me and my father just both throw up our hands.

I try to point these "sales" out to my daughter (now 10) and ask her opinion, and try to get her to see passed them, while understanding why they work.

TX_Val said...

To keep rambling, the exact opposite can be true also. A guy I work with (much older then myself) use to own a jewelry shop in a mall, or something of that sort. He said he got these really cheap watches and so he put them out on the counter for a buck or 2 a piece. He was getting them bulk for 50 cents a piece, or around that. So he though, 100% profit was enough. No one would buy them. A fellow business owner said, they're to cheap, no one wants the cheap crap, put $5 or more on them, and people will buy them.

He says it worked. They were just the cheap plastic watches, but people didn't want a dollar watch, it's obviously to cheap, but a $5 watch is cheap enough it should work for a while before you loose it and don't care.

So he said he ended up making more like 400% profit on them and learning a valuable marketing lesson.

Blah blah, I work with marketing people, and sometimes their logic boggles me. I work in logistics and planning, and am heavily evolved in the accounting side, so sometimes I break down and ask them what they're thinking. They're good at promotions and salesmanship, but I tell them they're not to touch the actual planning side of this stuff.

TX_Val said...

:) Sorry was off yesterday, had some pent up rambling..

Jason Janicki said...

No prob :) Now I just need to buy a bunch of cheap watches . . . ;)