MetaChat - Adventures in branding.

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01 February 2008

Adventures in branding. We make a bed for little girls. Hey, let's call it 'Lolita'! High five!

post by: mudpuppie at: 14:49 | 30 comments

I am glad to know the pole-dancing kit got enough bad press to be yanked, too.

posted by occhiblu 01 February | 14:52

OMG they got to you too?

posted by iconomy 01 February | 14:53

iconomy, shhhhhh! Income!

You're welcome to change the link, though. Here's one to the BBC.

posted by mudpuppie 01 February | 14:55

The point of the story, mudpuppie, though is that the staff at Woolworth were completely unaware of the connotations associated with the name 'Lolita', not that they did it deliberately.

That senior staff at one of the UK's largest chain of retailers appear not to have heard of Nabokov or 'Lolita' should surprise me, but it doesn't. The UK is becoming a nation of ignoramuses. (ignorami?)

posted by essexjan 01 February | 15:02

It is sad when a salacious story about molesting prepubescent girls isn't even popular enough to be widely known any longer. I think that may indeed be the death knell for literature.

posted by occhiblu 01 February | 15:04

For the benefit of any other Woolworths staff, Lolita was the 12-year-old girl who became the object of her middle-aged stepfather’s sexual obsession in the literary classic of the same name.

Made me laugh.

posted by iconomy 01 February | 15:05

Yeah, EJ, I know. I was taking artistic license.

posted by mudpuppie 01 February | 15:05

We had to look it up on Wikipedia.

Remember when we used to google things?

It's a new day, a new era.

posted by pokermonk 01 February | 15:15

pokermonk: Quite often, the first five or so results to a Google search will be links to Wikipedia articles, so it really doesn't make much difference if you google for something or look it up on Wikipedia.

posted by Daniel Charms 01 February | 15:23

Clearly, the problem was that it wasn't gothic enough.

posted by Daniel Charms 01 February | 15:32

It is sad when a salacious story about molesting prepubescent girls isn't even popular enough to be widely known any longer. I think that may indeed be the death knell for literature.

Of course, there's no possible way that Lolita could have been satirical or ironical, and even if the moral were actually contrary to the stated intentions of the main character, that does not excuse such sexual perversion in a work of imagination.

posted by muddgirl 01 February | 15:35

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic at me or with me, muddgirl, so I will just say that I agree with you and was aiming, in my own comment, for the lowest-common-denominator interpretation of Lolita, a novel that I very much love, to emphasize that if even *that* plot can't get attention any more, we're doomed.

(This thread seems to be proceeding weirdly. I'm not sure why.)

posted by occhiblu 01 February | 15:39

Sorry, occhiblu. I misinterpreted your cultural outrage as moral superiority, I think.

When will this crappy Friday be over?

posted by muddgirl 01 February | 15:43

Ha.

I will admit that when I read occhi's comment I was all like "whaaa...?" And then I was "surely she's being facetious" and then I was like, "but is she?" and then I was "Nah, I mean, I've met her, of course she isn't being serious" and then I was just like "buh".

posted by gaspode 01 February | 15:45

Ah. Sorry for my confusing tone, then.

And "I misinterpreted your cultural outrage as moral superiority" may be my favorite interpretation of anything, ever.

posted by occhiblu 01 February | 15:49

I still miss the simple comfort of the bunk beds my brother and I had as children. I believe they were called the 'Death Be Not Proud'.

posted by Atom Eyes 01 February | 15:51

Sorta related in a tangential, kinda of was-this--really-a-good-marketing-idea-given-what-we-know-about-child-molestation way.

I was actually impressed with the sincere sound of the Woolworth exec's response.

posted by Miko 01 February | 16:03

Oh god, miko, that PSA is awful.

posted by mudpuppie 01 February | 16:09

Yikes, Miko.

posted by occhiblu 01 February | 16:12

I'm just surprised that Woolworths still exists in the UK. They've been gone here for many years.

posted by octothorpe 01 February | 16:21

That... wow.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 01 February | 16:34

Atom Eyes, you crack me up.

Why does a bed need a name (hello?), I think the people at Woolworths are better educated than you think. They couldn't have bought the free advertising they've had on TV, Radio & the press today. I'd love to see the sales figures of the 'Lolita' next month. Garry,Sheffield

- one of the comments at the site.

posted by iconomy 01 February | 16:40

Weird thread, for sure. It was fun to read it's evolution. I liked how we all hugged at the end. This place is super cool.

posted by richat 01 February | 16:46

Atom Eyes ftw. If only I'd been drinking coffee so I could have spat it at the monitor.

posted by mygothlaundry 01 February | 16:51

*hugs it out*

posted by muddgirl 01 February | 17:12

When I was a little girl I kept falling out of my Atlas Shrugged bed.

posted by taz 01 February | 17:36

Funny how names can be ruined. See also: Damien, Adolf.

posted by eamondaly 01 February | 17:56

Remember when we used to google things?

I'm not sure I'd want to google for Lolita at work.

Kid1: Hey, my mom bought me this really cool Lolita bed.
Kid2: Yay, how does it look like.
Kid1: Well just google image search for lolita bed, you'll find it.

When I was a little girl I kept falling out of my Atlas Shrugged bed.

Now that's a nice concept for a little girl's bed. A naked guy holding the bed on his shoulders (and sometimes shrugging and letting it fall). I can't see what could possibly go wrong.

posted by qvantamon 01 February | 18:24

You can't spell 'Lolita' without 'lol'.

posted by atrazine 01 February | 18:35

Thanks miko, I'll be off now to create a new meme at 4chan!

posted by pieisexactlythree 01 February | 19:58

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