Anyways, while we were riding up, I was thinking to myself of ideas on how a system could be made to accommodate shopping carts going up or down a story. Somewhat along the lines of an escalator system. Well, I left it at that and didn’t think about it much more afterwards.

After we left Bed Bath and Beyond, we went to the other side of the mall and found Target, my girlfriend’s OCD-friendly fantasy store. As much as she loves Target, I wasn’t surprised at how thrilled she was to learn that just like Bed Bath and Beyond, this store too was two stories. Up where we live, we have ever yet to see a 2 store Target. I honestly didn’t think they could have that much crap to sell.

What’s great about this Target is the fact that they had solved the shopping cart escalator problem! We were both as mesmerized with this thing much in the same way that Asian tourists are with a pretty blonde girl in Las Vegas. I felt like an idiot taking the footage of this thing in action, but I knew what I had to do. I was on a mission to bring back a sight of the new world to the people of the IE! So behold: the Target Cartalator! (Well, if I got to name it anyway…)

According to Wikipedia:

Headquartered in Osaka, the family-owned construction company has origins dating back to the year 578, when Prince Shotoku brought Kongō family members from Baekje, Korea to Japan to build the Buddhist Shitennoji Temple, which still stands. Over the centuries, Kongō Gumi has participated in the construction of many famous buildings, including the 16th century Osaka Castle, Hōryū-ji in Nara, and Shitennō-ji.

But it looks as though the business has finally lost its ongoing record. While they still hold the record for the longest running business, they lost the record for the oldest business still running when they were bought by the Takamatsu Corporation.

Now heres the question… Who is the world’s oldest business that is still running? It doesn’t look like many people have an answer for that one.

Business Week [Via BoingBoing]

This was great for KFC. For one thing, it singled out a certain group of individuals for the promotion, and whenever this happens, there is ALWAYS going to be people trying to get into this group that otherwise wouldn’t be in there. Even if they really dont want the free sandwich, they want to be able to get into something they otherwise are not able to do. Thats just human nature. So eventually, word got out of the password all across the internet and everyone found it. Now they have a password, and only one thing to do with it. Go get a sandwich, and KFC hopes a drink and some tater’s too.

Another thing that made this a great marketing strategy; it is relatively uncommon. Almost unheard of for real promotions. And what more would geeks want than to tell everyone else about something weird and new about technology? Its that reason that KFC gained a lot of free press across the internet. Just the simple fact that people like to tell other people about interesting stuff. Look at what im writing about right now. Im giving KFC some free press.

Anyways… that was a while back. Im posting about yet another way KFC is using their ultra high paid advertising monkeys to churn out even more evil advertising. They are using the technological fact that younger people are able to hear different tones than older individuals.

This technology has been used in a few situations that I can think of off the top of my head such as cell phone ring tones that teachers couldn’t hear, but the kids could. Also I just saw a review on a device that was supposed to ward off teenagers from certain places that were more adult oriented (The review was horrible btw. It didnt work).

KFC’s new strategy is simple: insert a semi-ultrasonic tone into one of their advertisements. The advertisement looks and sounds completely normal to the elderly ear, but the commercial also says that there is a secret tone located somewhere in the commercial, and the first 1,000 kids to call a certain phone number with the correct location of the advertisement will get a free KFC menu item.

If you catch this commercial on the air and dont have one of your kids around to tell you where the sound is, I have a better idea. Go get your dog, set him by the television, and wait til the advertisement comes on again. When all of a sudden, your canine companion starts going into an epileptic seizure, you can bet that you just found that hidden sound.

Heres the commercial. I could hear that annoying sound perfectly, but just to be fair, this may be due to the video being transcoded into a digital medium. It may actually be a lot harder to hear on the TV.

KFC Mosquito Tone Commercial @ Engadget