Bloggleby Friday's

There’s nothing I hate more than bad marketing, and there are few industries that suffer from bad marketing more than restaurants. You know the places I’m talking about – O’Charleys, Applebees, Ruby Tuesdays - anyplace that has a freaking jingle or sings and dances to songs about their entrees. Besides the stupid images of people enjoying their food so much you’d think it had catnip in it, the worst example of this marketing can be seen in the menu items.

First, they take a basic meat, like chicken or steak, and cook it. Then, they get about 5 different bottles of stuff they can put on top of it, and for each different topping they pour on it they give it a fancy new name. So chicken with hot sauce on it becomes “Buffalo Chicken Kikkers”, while that same chicken with honey barbeque sauce on it becomes “Kikkin’ Chicken Honey Smakkers”. To make it worse, they try to beef up their menu (ha-ha-ha, “beef up” their menu…get it? That’s comedy gold!) by taking these same dishes and putting them on a hamburger bun and then changing the name. So “Kikkin’ Chicken Smakkers” becomes the “Smakkers Sub Club” or the “Kikkin Smakker’s Bistro Burger”.

One thing they feel they MUST do is misspell stuff. Notice the word “kickers” and how it is misspelled on purpose with an additional letter “k” – this is supposed to make the dish hip and cool. Apparently, being an uneducated idiot with bad grammar and spelling skills is HOT (or "Hawt", as hip people spell it). Why is it that stupid people are seen as cool while smart people are seen as ugly, geeky nerds who smell like joint rub? How does poor spelling make a plate of chicken more exciting?

The worst part is waiter interaction. Every time they talk to you, it, it’s like they're speaking some kind of secret code language that you have to decipher with the menu. It’s kind of like:

“Would you like to sample our Kikkin’ Smakker’s Sampler Combo today sir? Or perhaps you’d like to try our Poppin’ Apple Chicken Slammers? Our Jammer’s Jumbo Feature today is a Slammers 14 ounce and comes with our famous Potato Grabber Wedgies and your choice of Jammer’s Breezers.”

And you’re like:

“Uhhhhhhh…what?”

Incidentally, this is why no one ever orders the specials the waiters suggest…no one can understand what they are offering! In the end, you wind up just pointing to the picture of the item you want and hoping they get it right.

Just another post proclaiming my hatred for all things stupid. CLASS DISMISSED!

Yes, I’d like your Jamaica Jammers Slammers Platter, but instead of the Kikkin Chicken could I get the Bahama Beef with the Smakkers sauce on the side? Wait…what did I just order?