Fritinancy

Doing more with -less

In 1995 there was Clueless, writer/director Amy Heckerling’s updating of Jane Austen’s Emma; the big-screen version begat a TV series by the same name. Last year brought Limitless, another movie-to-TV recycling, this one about “an average 28-year-old man who gains the ability to use the full extent of his brain’s capabilities” and is hired by the FBI as a consultant. It lasted barely a season.

This season, get ready for four TV shows with one-word “-less” titles. Minimalism? Austerity? Theft? Whatever the reason for the trend, good luck keeping them all straight.

A box of don’ts

Currently in theaters:

Don’t Breathe, a horror film that cost a mere $10 million to make and which is expected to clear a 500 percent profit by the end of its run.

 

Don’t Think Twice, a comedy-drama by Mike Birbiglia with an impressive 99 percent TomatoMeter rating.*

 

But the don’ts don’t stop there.

In the Wild: Adjective Noun Is Adjective

Here’s one of the Verizon “Better Matters” ads currently papering the Montgomery BART station in San Francisco:

 

“A better network is better.”

 

“Well, of course better is better,” you may be thinking with a twinge of annoyance. (“Some copywriter got overpaid for that?”) Ah, but there’s more to the slogan than meets the eye.

One X at a Time: One More Time

What is it about this particular sloganclone that accounts for its abiding popularity? I have a theory, which I divulge further down. But first, five fresh examples.

See How They Glo

From snack food to pet food, from table décor to table games, there are no balls like Glo Balls:

 

No pic.twitter.com/zCs3uFHAk0

— Kevin Hearne (@KevinHearne) October 13, 2015

For Halloween, Hostess Sno Balls turn into Glo Balls (a registered trademark since 2005). “Very funny if you’re a 12-year-old boy,” snarks snack critic Paddy O’Poppycock, who gave Glo Balls a 2.4 rating (out of 10).

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Glo Ball Basic Table Lamp (in background), by Jasper Morrison.

 

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GloBall, a football board game.

 

 

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Glo-Balls (UK) “Hi-Viz Dog Accessories.” Motto: “Day or night, our balls shine bright!”

 

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Glo-Balls glow-in-the-dark pinball-machine balls.

 

Wishing you and yours a luminous Halloween!

I Got Plenty o' Plenti

And Plenti’s plenty for me, since the name has been claimed twice.

In May, American Express launched Plenti, a loyalty program that allows consumers to earn “Plenti points”—one for each dollar spent at 10 brick-and-mortar retailers.

 

The catch: Until some time in the future to be determined, you can redeem those points at only four retailers: Mobil gas stations, Macy’s, Rite Aid, and Exxon.

Plenti was designed to be a rewards card, not a credit card. But, rather confusingly, AmEx also offers a Plenti credit card.

And because one Plenti isn’t enough, here’s Yoplait’s Plenti, Greek yogurt stuffed with healthy stuff (“and other natural flavors”).

 

Just in case you’re unsure, the packaging spells it out: Plenti is short for “plentiful.” (Discovered at The Impulsive Buy.)

 

Speaking of plentiful, I note with moderate pleasure that the dating site Plenty of Fish now uses the URL pof.com. Its previous incarnation, plentyoffish.com, always looked to me like as “Plenty Offish,” which seemed plenty offputting. On the other hand, “pof” is perilously close to poof and P.O.S.

 

Unrelated, but also new this year from Yoplait: Greek 100 Whips! (exclamation mark sic).

Sweet, creamy, and well disciplined. Consenting adults only. Fifty shades of grape. Image via Midlife at the Oasis.

This Is How

This is how you verb your brand name.

“This is how you Sonic.”

*

 

This is how we verb a place name.

“This is how we Vegas.” (Ad for Aria Resort and Casino in San Francisco magazine, May 2015.)

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This is how you title an advice book.

This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike, by Augusten Burroughs. The paperback edition (2013) bore an abbreviated subtitle: Surviving What You Think You Can't.

 

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This is how you title a finalist for the National Book Award.

This Is How You Lose Her, by Junot Díaz (2012).

 

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This is how we do.

 

 

Katy Perry (2014).

The Ultimate Advertising Machine®

Two German companies. Two ads. Two strikingly—suspiciously?—similar slogans.

 

 

“The Ultimate Lighting Machines.” Holtkötter. Page 161, New York Times T Magazine, March 22, 2015. In non-logo appearances, the name is spelled Holtkoetter.

 

 

“The Ultimate Driving Machine.” Screen grab from the 30-second BMW “Hello Future” spot that aired during the 2015 Super Bowl.

 

“The Ultimate Driving Machine” has been BMW’s tagline since 1975, when it was created by the American ad agency Ammurati & Puris; the company filed for trademark protection of the line in 1981. (In 1990, Rawlings Golf in Northridge, California, registered the identical slogan for use with golf clubs. That trademark was abandoned in 1992, possibly under pressure from Bayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaft.) Just before the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada, the carmaker took a detour with a campaign called “Joy” that was supposed, according to the company’s vice president of marketing, to “warm the brand up.” BMW loyalists were not impressed, and in 2012 “The Ultimate Driving Machine” was once again in the driver’s seat.

“The Ultimate Lighting Machines” has a shorter history. (BMW has been BMW since 1916; Holtkötter Leuchten GmbH was founded in West Germany in 1964.) Holtkoetter Lighting, Holtkötter’s Minnesota-based U.S. division, was denied trademark protection of the slogan in 1997, and abandoned its claim. It tried again in May 2013 under a new dba, St. Paul Lighting, and two months ago—on February 3, 2015—the mark was registered. The record is mum on whether BMW USA raised any objections during the process.

Like BMW driving machines, Holtkötter/Holtkoetter lighting machines are not for bargain hunters. The slender chrome floor lamp in the ad costs almost $1,000; a starkly dramatic chandelier will set you back more than $2,000.

The trademark database also shows that Holtkoetter has received trademark protection for at least one other “ultimate” slogan: “The Ultimate LED.” That product, a light bulb, is not to be confused with “The Ultimate Led Zeppelin Experience,” a tribute band.

While the Getting’s Good

In New York City, you can summon a limo with an app called Gett.

TechCrunch calls Gett “Uber without surge pricing.”“Gett rides are $10 in central Manhattan, anywhere between Houston and Central Park South, no matter what day of the week.”

 

You can tell your Gett driver to take you to Lincoln Plaza to see a screening of Gett.

Gett—it's the Hebrew word for a religious divorce—is an Israeli courtroom drama that opened in the U.S. in February. New York Times critic Manohla Dargis called it “gripping cinema from start to finish.”

 

Curiously, the ride-hailing app Gett was developed in Israel, where Hebrew is, of course, one of the official languages. In most of the 32 cities in which it operates, the company is known as GetTaxi.

 

Confused? You could just stay home and watch getTV.

 

“A new television network that brings the classic films you love to your living room.” (Read my Visual Thesaurus column on “classic.”)

 

getTV is owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment. It launched in February 2014.

  

Got it?

Danny Kaye and Basil Rathbone in The Court Jester (1955)

Cover Girls

Spotted sharing a bookshelf in the fiction section at Powell’s City of Books in Portland, Oregon: four titles that, when read in sequence, form a set of instructions.

 

How to Build a Girl, by Caitlin Moran.
Not That Kind of Girl, by Lena Dunham (whose series for HBO is, of course, Girls)
Clown Girl, by Monica Drake
Ugly Girls, by Lindsay Hunter

 

Elsewhere in the store: A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, by Eimear McBride; Fangirl, by Rainbow Rowell, and Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn.

In another bookstore closer to home (Walden Pond Books, Oakland) I found #Girlboss, by Sophia Amoruso; The Shining Girls, by Lauren Beukes; and Growgirl, by Heather Donohue (who starred in the 1999 cult movie Blair Witch Project and then became a pot grower in Northern California).

All of these books were published between 2012 and 2014; all are about adult women, not children. 

There’s a lesson here for lady writers, although it grieves me a little to spell it out: No matter how long ago you passed puberty, to your publisher you’ll always be a girl.