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25 Comments

news

The Biggest Looser

By Val Dodge

Who's the looser now?
We’re happy to report that the looser who sat behind you in Grade 12 English class just got a job as a copy writer. You always knew that he’d make his mark on the world in some way, didn’t you?
How exactly does such a glaring mistake make it through all of the design and approval stages that must be required before an ad like this is even printed? Interestingly, they managed to spell it right on their web site, though they also managed to misspell one of their company names (“Wed Direct Solutions”) in the footer on all of their sites. Who needs quality control anyway? Certainly not a company selling “healthy lifestyle” products.
Photo by Val Dodge

Comments

  • Bleb

    Perhaps they’re referring to how all that extra skin will look once the fat is gone.

  • s20451

    Maybe their product doesn’t work, so they mangled their ad so as not to be held liable for false advertising.

  • McKingford

    And to add insult to injury, that’s probably an illegal advertising pillar…

  • Patrick Metzger

    Clearly they’re using “loose” as a verb:
    “to shoot; discharge; let fly: to loose missiles at the invaders. ”
    That’s cutting edge advertising, people.

  • Damon Kemp

    LOL. So cutting edge they paired it up with the Gold Seal Tuna.
    A combo made in ad heaven.

  • Bleb

    I think your all being to hard on them. Their doing the best they can!

  • Carrie M

    Spelling lose as loose is one of my biggest pet peeves. You wouldn’t believe how many people do it…it’s sadly pretty common.

  • kstop

    There’s a similar ad for a rheumatism patch on a building on Spadina near Queen. When I saw this one I pretty much assumed it was more lame viral marketing crap along the lines of the Obay thing. I haven’t bothered to go to the URL though.

  • Vincent Clement

    Spell check.

  • the goggles do nothing

    Maybe they’ve a double o becuase there’s a double o in “Hoodia”.

  • the goggles do nothing

    missing a “used” and I need a spell check for “because”

  • Vengeance Is Fine

    I ughree with Bleb! Your being insensative just because their are sum speling misteaks!
    I meen, searyuslee, sum peeple spel fonetically and they du the best they can.
    Is you’re speling ne bettor?

  • Ramblings

    @Vincent: Hope your joking, since theirs nothing a spell cheque wood fix.

  • burnstoemerge

    Since I am probably going to be a future unemployed copy editor or journalist, this makes me sad. People like us are trained to know the difference between “loose” and “lose,” and we’re supposed to eventually work for companies like these who have 15 year olds running their marking departments.

  • andrew

    Someone has got to do the digging and find out what company did the ad, and who messed up. This calls for public shaming. I expect nothing less than the guilty party to be stoned with weight-loss products in Nathan Phillips Square. I will accept, however, he or she submitting to sitting on stage during an entire Pretty Porky Pissed Off troupe performance.

  • Miles Storey

    Perhaps the word is actually a reference to possibly colonic side effects of using the patch?

  • Roxanne Bielskis

    Jeezus.
    To add to this: There’s a giant fancy, printed sign in the window of the Reitman’s in Dufferin Mall right now that reads:
    CAPRI’S
    The apostrophe ones kill me. It’s actually correct to do less thinking and not use one.

  • Roxanne Bielskis

    OOH! I just did it myself! I looked it up, and the store is just “Reitmans”, not “Reitman’s”.
    Burn on me.

  • rek

    Those are known as Greengrocers’ Apostrophes.
    What kills me the most, though, is question mark abuse. Throwing on a question mark does not make a sentence into a question. It’s fine if you want to talk like that, but writing “I thought they went to the mall?” means “did I think they went to the mall?” and not “didn’t they go to the mall?”.

  • denmar

    That’s pretty brutal. I don’t understand how these advertisements make it sometimes. Don’t they have fact checkers?

  • prettydeviant

    Considering the previous article (Can’t Buy Me Love) asks if we’re looking to “stalk” up on snacks, I don’t think you guys are in much of a position to throw stones.

  • fishstique

    The funniest thing about this article is the fact that you spelled copywriter wrong.
    - one of those looser copywriters

  • David Topping

    Bear in mind, prettydeviant, that we’re a website (with dozens of writers, including a copy editor!) publishing thousands of words a day—words we can change if we make a mistake (and we do occasionally make mistakes)—not a company spending several hundred (or more?) dollars to create an advertisement with eight words, and pay several hundred dollars more to publicly display it on an ad pillar downtown. We’re not malicious, just having fun; I’ll gladly defend bad grammar sometimes.

  • Mark Ostler

    Saw one of these posters near the Parkdale library this morning on the same sort of ad pillar. It had the correct spelling of “lose.” Don’t know whether it’s the same exact poster, with corretion, or a different one and only certain posters have the mistake.

  • redleaf

    There’s one at the corner of Armoury St and Centre Ave downtown. It is spelled correctly. There’s another one on the walk home. Now it’s going to bug me until I check it out too.