Advertising in Collision Course with Reality

I've ranted in the past about how advertising photos idealize the products being promoted to a point that makes them unrecognizable... or that keeps us from identifying those products in real life.

The German website PUNDO300.com has taken this concept to an extreme (check out "projekt 1" on the site), and after collecting a a sizable set of photos that compare real -life products with their intended representation, it is now publishing a book with the results.

Let us not get too far afield with comments about snotty-looking cheese burgers or disgusting looking rice pudding, the lesson here is quite simple: marketing - even very bad marketing - can sell a product at least once, but only the quality of the product will generate repeat sales.