When the light is green, the trap is clean

I was flickin' through the channels last night when something on Hannity & Colmes caught my eye. (An aside: The very thought of Hannity & Colmes makes me sick. Even just now, a little bit of puke came up. I swallowed it back down, though.) What made me stop and pay attention was this:

It's Green Card energy drink! It's marketed to Mexicans who are about to cross the border! Look closely at the tagline, and the logo. That's funny. Really.

The designer and marketer, Jeff Weiss, was on the show to promote it. H&C took the all too predictible line of affront and indignation, and pretty much spent 7 straight minutes railing the guy for everything from aiding and abetting, to exploitation, to supporting terror. But good ol' Jeffy took it all on the chin. And why whouldn't he? His product was getting free exposure - mission accomplished!

That this drink will be marketed to illegal immigrants is a total front. Pedro stops at 7-11 to buy a Green Card on his way to the border, much like Suzie buys a Starbucks on the way to work? Come on, the story's ludicrous. H&C are such fucking meatheads.

The truth is that the kiddies are a major constituent of energy drink consumers as a whole, and so contribute substantially to what is a multi-billion dollar a year industry. Drink companies have responded to this nugget of marketing research gold, and are now scrambling to generate teen-attractive product.

The problem is getting noticed in the wake of an explosion of new brand names; 500+ have been launched in 2006 alone. The effect has been a game of literally nominal oneupsmanship. Hence the existence such clever nomenclature as Cocaine, Crunk, Pimp Juice, Retard Strength(!), and now, Green Card. (Make sure you read the title of Retard Strength website. Great throwback!)

Of course, since the only way I'll drink an energy drink is if you drop a shot of booze into it first, all this means nothing to me, other than that I get to laugh at funny brand names and have something to post about for the day.