Hanes: Need a Little (Agency) Help Over There?

hanes-comfort1.jpg

Selling underwear is usually a no-brainer for some companies. You make it sexy, you make it provocative, you dress it all up and get some pretty people to trounce around in it, or - worst comes to worst - you find really fruity mascots, like Fruit of the Loom.

We can't think of a major underwear brand that fails to be interesting in the same way that Hanes does.

And this isn't a recent thing. They've always kind of sucked.

This year is no different. As if seeking to compound their suckiness, Hanes comes out with the absolute lamest contest ever. Dubbed simply Hanes' Nationwide Online Instant Win Promotion (per the pressie), consider the rules here and tell us if you ever saw anything that felt more lukewarm.

To elaborate for those that may feel disinclined to click, the object of the game is to click on pairs of flashing underpants until a signal stops you. Those are the rules up to the third step, anyway.

Then the fourth step goes way left field: "Let's play for fun and see if the computer lets you collect 8 items to win a portable DVD player or all 12 to win $25,000!"

Huh? Let's play for fun? If the computer lets us? What?

by Angela Natividad    Aug-15-07   Click to Comment   
Topic: Bad, Games, Online   

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Comments



Comments

That is the funniest thing ever; let's see if the computer let's you win???

I have been recently talking with game designers from all over the world about the principles of good game design and how corporations manage to violate all of them!

Strictly speaking the folk at Hanes have tried to devise an agonistic game, confused everyone by making it aleatory, and then violated the principle of alea by making the optimal outcome for the player suboptimal for the company and buried within the mysterious whim of a computer that was programmed by the company in question.

...which is a fancy way of saying that you can't win with either skill or luck, you need the computer to help you (and the computer has no motivation to help you because it was programmed by people who want to keep their money.)

Bad, bad, bad!

Posted by: James Lillis on August 16, 2007 1:25 AM

Keep in mind, this is for the Canada division...

I actually think the Jordan/Cuba Comfortsoft spots are effective.

Hadn't seen this "game" before, yet, though.

Posted by: Brad on August 16, 2007 9:24 AM

The game sounds a little odd and since they created the game it may be a little hard to win. But they do have comfortable undergarments.

Posted by: Clerical Solutions on August 18, 2007 9:08 AM