A legendary Burger King employee, known across the land for the heroic and selfless deed of randomly inserting a single onion ring among the french fries of unsuspecting customers, is believed to have recently resurfaced in this sleepy Illinois town, sources reported Monday.
One ring to rule them all.
I don’t know what the last time you ordered a pizza online was, but someone in Domino’s Pizza’s marketing and/or web department needs a raise. The site is full of completely awesome copy. For instance: when you choose toppings for a pizza, they are divided into two categories:
This is a distinction I fully support.
When creating a pizza using their ordering interface, there is some fine print under the graphical representation of your pizza. (The graphical representation is also awesome; it is a photograph that reflects as you check on toppings/crusts what your final pizza will resemble.) The text reads:
The Pizza Builder will always show a large pizza. If you choose a different size, the topping amounts will vary. The deliciousness, however, will not.
This is a delightfully snarky way to tell you that they aren’t about to make a whole bunch of different graphics just to show you what will be on your pizza. Creative.
At the bottom of the screen is some text speaking about their 30-minute promise. It says:
Because safety is a priority, “You Got 30 Minutes™” is not a guarantee, but an estimate. You may get more.
Once again, we have what amounts to normally boring copy (legal instead of technical this time), but it’s been given a human flavor and just a little bit of an attitude. There’s personality behind this web copy, something I think is very important and should be rewarded. “You may get more” is funny in a direct way.
When you place your order, you also get to see using a “tracking service” where your pizza is in the creation process, including when it leaves the store to be delivered to your house. It even includes the names of the employees responsible for their parts in the process. It adds an unmistakably personal touch to the process of ordering a pizza on a web site—which by its very nature is an impersonal process.
Hats off.
What about you? Have you ever had an experience with a web site for a store or establishment that goes that extra mile to make things feel more personal and connected? Do you prefer a formal, business-language approach, or something that’s more informal and down-to-earth?
If you see a bottle of this monstrosity that is currently taking the name of Mountain Dew and and the name of Halo in vain, please don’t pick it up. Don’t do what I did and let your curiosity overtake your intuition when it informs you that a soda this bright an orange/red color cannot possibly taste good.
I’m fairly certain that “citrus cherry flavor” isn’t something that even exists in the rational world.
Amanda said she thought it tasted like “death.” I’m not sure that’s too far off the mark.
A wonderful new study shows that preschoolers – preschoolers – are more likely to think anything tastes good if it has the right branding on it (in this case, McDonald’s).
Even carrots, milk and apple juice tasted better to the kids when they were wrapped in the familiar packaging of the Golden Arches.
The study had youngsters sample identical McDonald’s foods in name-brand and unmarked wrappers. The unmarked foods always lost the taste test.
This reveals deeply-rooted and ingrained behavioral results from these children. For my money, though, the sad part is really this:
The study involved 63 low-income children ages 3 to 5 from Head Start centers in San Mateo County, Calif. Robinson believes the results would be similar for children from wealthier families…
Just two of the 63 children studied said they’d never eaten at McDonald’s, and about one-third ate there at least weekly. Most recognized the McDonald’s logo but it was mentioned to those who didn’t.
I’d like to think that I’m trying to raise my children to better standards of caloric intake than this. I might not have yet learned my lesson, but the goal of any parent is to try and make sure your children turn out better than you did. My kids get McDonald’s maybe once or twice a month, and even then I sometimes think that’s too often.
Of course, they don’t always eat the meals their mother makes for them, either, but I think that’s just a closed-mindedness about new things. We’ll break them of that yet.
