Weekly Ad Uncoiling: La Hacienda Mexican Restaurants
This week, let’s take a look at a highly questionable bit of “ambient” advertising, as it’s been dubbed in my buzzword happy industry. La Hacienda, tagline “The Hottest Food In Town,” is a chain of 37 Mexican eateries dotting the heartland of America. They are known for the spiciest, south-of-the-border specialties. To totally ram that point home, they’ve apparently installed mini refrigerators filled with rolls of chilling toilet paper into their restroom stalls. Erm. I guess we could give them brownie points (sorry) for their brutal no-shit honesty? Maybe they should hire attendants to hand out mini-tubes of Preparation H cooling gel, too? What do you think of this south-of-the-waistline stunt? Me, I think it might have put me off of mole poblano sauce for life. (images via: scary ideas)
October 16th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Holy shit. I’m not even gonna deny intentional puns. But really, holy shit. That’s just…I mean…do I really wanna eat some place that upfront tells me they’re gonna give me, the what? THE SHITS? I could be wrong, but my taste buds aren’t a’ achin’ for La Hacienda cuisine right now.
October 16th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
BWAAAHAHAHA…that “Diasporrhea” tag was born to grace this post.
October 16th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
the campaign would have been much more effective if that was merely a poster.
October 16th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
As someone who likes exceptionally hot food now and then (mmm…habaneros) I guess I’m the target market for this ad. The integral intestinal ick factor of the ad didn’t really bother me but it still didn’t really come off as that great of an ad. Maybe its just that it seems like way too much effort (and energy expenditure, fridges use quite a bit!) for not that funny of a joke.
Also putting advertising thats message is “We Have the Hottest Food in Town” in your restaurant bathroom seems redundant. If customers are in your restaurant already then I imagine they have more direct ways of finding out what the food tastes like than learning from a bathroom advertisement, such as perhaps eating it.
October 16th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Ugh. Why would you ever want to bring up potty-issues when you want to be thinking about food?
That being said, I could actually picture this sort of ad being run for hot wings. Or maybe I’m just associating this sort of ad campaign with stereotypical guy-humor…
October 16th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
On a related, uh, note:
October 17th, 2008 at 1:01 am
I find it fun, hehee. But a poster would have been enough, yes, I do not like this waste of energy myself :P
Personally, I have come to terms with the fact that food, no matter how wonderful, is gonna end up being poo sooner or later.
Poo is one of the last taboos, if you think about it.
October 17th, 2008 at 5:11 am
There should be some sort of National Geographic or History Channel special about that.
Poo: The Last Frontier.
October 17th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
lol, I get it, the food is so hot it burns both ends, these guys must be super smart to have come up with the frozen paper idea, maybe they can figure out how to fix the economy next.*
*sarcasm
October 19th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
“Poo is one of the last taboos, if you think about it.”
Untrue my dear! If you look at Asian pop culture they’ve managed to do all sorts of things with it…even make it into cutesy stickers! Plus as I posted long ago there is even a movie about a lil poo who goes in search of his use in the world. So poo is less a taboo and the next big thing…even the History Channel had a History of Dung special.
Has anyone seen that machine built to mimic the human digestive system? It’s massive and it too ends with poo…the wonders of technology!