Jessica Malnik

Now, I’ve never been a huge fan of Valentine’s Day. It’s mostly because we should be telling our loved ones and significant others we love them everyday and not just on February 14th. But, it’s also because its an excuse for every greeting card store, flower shop, jewelry store and candy place to jack up their prices and run sappy, lovey-dovey TV ads from January-Valentine’s Day. Most of the promotions are your standard lovey-dovey types. However, this year, I’ve came across a lot of strange Valentine’s Day marketing promotions. These are the kinds of specials that would have most couples breaking up or filing for a divorce come February 15th. Yeah, these five V-day specials are really that bad.

1. Tie The Knot With a $10 Pizza Hut Dinner Box

Valentine’s Day has always been a big day for proposals. Yet, I can’t think of any girl on this Earth, whose dream proposal comes with Pizza Hut pizza. To be fair, it’s a $10,010 proposal package that includes a ruby red (Pizza Hut box colored) ring, a limo service, photographer, videographer, flowers, fireworks and yes a $10 dinner box of Pizza Hut’s subpar pizza, breadsticks and cinnamon twists.

2. Take your date to the Waffle House

Now, most of us have vivid memories of Waffle House meals. For me and a lot of my friends, it involved a 3 a.m. drunk fix for greasy eggs and waffles. For others, it was the perfect hang over cure.

It seems like Waffle House is looking to upgrade their image- at least for one night of the year. They are accepting Valentine’s Day reservations at a lot of their locations. (yes, you heard that right). According to a Georgia Waffle House Manager, “It will have tablecloths. It will have alcohol-free champagne. The lighting will be dimmer. It will be cloth napkins instead of paper. The atmosphere will be more of a five-star sit down and less fast-production Waffle House.”

3. Dunkin Donuts Heart-Shaped Donuts 

Dunkin Donuts is another brand, who seems a bit overzealous to get on the Valentine’s Day bandwagon. They have made special heart-shaped donuts. Because nothing screams, I love you” more than a greasy, sugary fried heart-shaped dough ball. Let’s just hope they are marketing this more to kids’ V-day parties. One can only hope.

4. Nothing Screams Romance Like $10 wings at Hooters 

I can’t think of one good reason why any guy would take their girlfriend or wife to Hooters on Valentine’s Day unless they really needed an excuse to file for a divorce. In that case, they are better off leaving their wife at home while they go awkwardly hit on Hooters’ girls.

5. V-Day Payday Loans

Short on cash this Valentine’s Day? Don’t fret. Cash Choice, a UK cash loans company, is offering Valentine’s Day specials. Because nothing screams the start of an amazing relationship than spending money you don’t have on expensive dinners and gifts.

In this day and age, we consume more statistics, numbers and raw data than ever before. We share it all the time via social media, presentations and the almighty infographic. However, are we becoming too trustworthy about taking the data we consume at face value? Do we really know where all these stats are coming from?

Stats can lie. Infographics can be very, very misleading. Percentages don’t always add up. The data could be plain wrong. Yet, most times we assume and read it at face value without questioning where the data came from. In this day and age, it’s more important than ever to be your own detective and uncover the good data from the bad. Here’s a five things to watch out for.

1. Check the source.
Who made this infographic? Who posted this study? Does the source have a bias or affiliated with a group that may have a bias? (Hint: Political organizations, brands and organizations are almost always going to have a bias or a motive for publishing that an infographic).

2. Who sponsored it?
Who sponsored the study? Are there any obvious biases?

3. What does the infographic really tell you?
Is it just mindless jibberjabber meant to sound and look impressive? Or, is there real meat behind the numbers? Does the statistic or infographic use any analogies? If so, are they comparing apples to apples or apples to textbooks?

4. Do the numbers and percentages add up?
Do the percentages add up to 100? Do all the numbers add up to the total? This seems like a no brainer, but faulty math and logic occur all the time.

5. How big is the sample size?
The golden rule. The bigger the sample size, the more accurate the data is. For instance, if a study only polled 150 people, the margin of error is quite high. If they polled 15,000 people, the margin of error should be much lower.

Now if you occasionally find yourself wide awake at 2 a.m, like me, you know that there are very few things you can do at that hour (the joys of insomnia). The most common thing is turning on the television. That leaves you with essentially two options: Nick at Nite reruns and the late-night infomercials. Now, I can only watch so many Friends and The Nanny reruns. So, I tune into one of the ridiculous infomercials. And, it got me thinking. Sometimes even the most boring, guaranteed to put an insomniac to sleep informercials can do wonders to make a product stand out. From ninja swords to Snuggies, here’s a few casual insights from a very sleep-deprived marketer.

1. Make sure you fill a need- as ridiculous as it may be. 

The secret to a good infomercial product is that it must fill a need for your target audience. Now, this need could be as mundane as finding a better way to chop onions. But in some other cases, marketers are going to have to get creative. Take “Easy Feet” for example. Now, I’m pretty sure everyone, I think, wants to have squeaky clean feet. Most people just use a washcloth. I’m not sure how many people would automatically go out and buy what I can only describe as the world’s most awkward car wash for feet before this infomercial debuted.

2. Cater to people’s laziness. 

It never ceases to amaze me just how lazy we can be. Only in America would we have inventions like the Snuggie. The Snuggie is a ridiculous looking wearable blanket. Yet, it may be one of the most well-known infomercials out there. They have sold millions of them.

3. Make sure your product can be parodied.  

Youtube. It can be the best way to get a late night infomercial tons of exposure. There’s only so many people, who are going to stay up and watch the Forever Lazy infomercial (a spin-off of the Snuggie) at 2 a.m. But, put it on Youtube. You are bound to get dozens and dozens of parodies and spin-offs. Many of them are very funny, and a lot of them are NSFW.

4. Go for the WTF Factor.

If all else fails, go for the WTF factor. Make sure that your product is either so absurd or can be used for such an absurd task that it becomes memorable. Take “furniture fix,” which is supposed to fix sagging couches.  To illustrate their point, they showed two SUMO wrestlers — weighing more than 1,000 pounds– sitting on the couch. Yeah, just a little bit extreme right?

So, let’s have a little fun now. What’s the worst infomercial you have seen? Share in the comments section below.