Seriously, who writes this copy?

[jwgh]

Edit: Note the faint picture of the Leaning Tower of Pisa in the background. I guess this is because both Pisa and Parma are in northern Italy, maybe.

Comments

[cgoldfish.livejournal.com]

a garlic patch?

[jwgh]

What is an enticing zest?

It's what

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

citrine strippers tantalizingly slip out of.

Duh! It's because Pisa sounds like pizza

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

which always contains raw fish Parmesan cheese, dummy.

Parmesan Garlic.
It's too good for you, you blithering idiot.

Man, that description of cheese mashing garlic stalks into the dirt has got my stomach talking before you've even opened the package.

[margo-virago.livejournal.com]

someone, somewhere, wrote that and got paid for it. in money.

[muffyjo]

Those who can write, write. Those who can't, write copy for ad agencies.

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

My stomach is talking in technicolor.

[jwgh]

My inability to speak says it all.

[mskala.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I don't think that's so bad. The only parts that really upset me are the use of "zing" as a verb and "select" as a noun. The rest is deliberately written in a silly style, but I don't think that should be held against it - it seems appropriate to the context.

[jwgh]

Hmm, it doesn't read as being deliberately silly to me, just incompetently written. (The rest of the packaging doesn't signify 'intentional joke' to me, but I may be tone-deaf.)

[mskala.livejournal.com]

I don't mean I think it's meant to be a joke, exactly, but that it's written in a very informal style with a lot of puffery and hyperbole. The person I imagine as the intended audience is stoned. "Dude, let's open the one that tastes like a wheel of parmesan rolling through a garlic patch! Yeah!"

[jwgh]

Hmm, this is all food for thought. I will think upon it.

As further data points, here's what's on the sundried tomato flavored Pringles Select:

Sun Dried to perfection, Tomatoes that will tantalize your snacking self
The fresh beams of sunlight capture the bold and zesty flavors of tomatoes marinating in the sun. When this sun dried tomato crisp touches your tongue, it comes back to life, full of gourmet flavor. A flavor so delicious and overpowering that your taste buds will thank you for the experience.

Sun Dried Tomato. It's a Pringles Select.

and the szechuan barbecue ones have:

Spicy peppers and saucy flavors dance wildly across a crisp. Awaken sleeping taste buds you never knew existed. Spicy peppers with just the right amount of tang, combined with an authentic sauce have flames dancing high in the wok as the Szechuan ingredients splash from side to side. The taste will heighten your senses, while the flavor dances on your tongue.

Spicy Szechuan Barbecue. It's a Pringles Select.

Hey! I forgot!

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

In editing my comment below, I accidentally took out the part where I said the other flavors don't have anything anywhere near the super clunkers like the rolling cheese wheel to suggest that they're just extreme examples of a theme for the product line. That's another reason this one seems to me like it has to have been done on purpose.

Incompetently written?

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

Looks to me more like a highly proficient writer with a grudge to satisfy pulled one over on a totally incompetent editor. This isn't just a "silly style." This thing reads to me like an expanded Wacky Packages sticker or a Mad Magazine cartoon, and I'd hate to think it could have been done by accident. This has the ring of carefully crafted satire right from the very first words.

• "Like a Parmesan cheese wheel"--heavy, unwieldy, and impossibly hard to bite into
• "cheese wheel rolling"--either the workers are playing with my food or it's running rampant around the factory
• "rolling through a garlic patch"--destroying the garlic and grinding dirt into the cheese
• "your stomach talking"--nuff said above, especially if there's a low-fat version with Olean
• "your inability to speak" sounds like a neurological condition, not speechlessness at something pleasant
• "only a connoisseur can truly appreciate"--especially after all the rest, this has to mean it will gross out your middle-class palate even more than foie gras.

[paracelsvs.livejournal.com]

I think it's time to repost this: