Stretching a dollar has an alternative meaning for Joey Green, aka The Pantry Professor. Most of us suffer from “functional fixedness,” the unconscious condition of thinking Kool-Aid is for drinking. But Joey knows you can fix a broken dishwasher with it!
You may look at a can of Spam and ask, “Why?” Joey Green looks at a can of Spam and polishes the furniture with it. It’s all about thinking outside the tin.
Would it surprise you to discover that Joey is a former Madison Avenue advertising copywriter (Mad Man)? Whose job was to get inside the heads of the “average American family with 2.2 kids” and find out what motivated them to load up their shopping carts with one brand name packaged good over another?
It’s true. Long ago, at a brainstorming meeting for Nestea Iced Tea Mix, Joey’s ad agency was asked to come up with alternative uses for the drink to increase sales. He discovered you could bathe in it to soothe sunburn pain. It was a “where were you when” moment, and a new career was born.
Since then, Joey got Jay Leno to shave with Jif, moussed Rosie O’Donnell’s hair with Jell-O and polished Martin Short’s furniture with Spam. Who knew he’d be serving Mankind as the “Guru of Weird Uses for Brand-Name Products.” (There is a guru for everything.)
But it’s all in a day’s work, and Joey will be working it this year at The Builders Home and Garden Show. Hey, all of us need to stretch a dollar these days. There’s probably another 47,383 more ways you could be using all the household items you’ve got in the cupboard! Quit slacking!
Joey’ll show us how to clean driveway oil spills with Coca-Cola, fix water rings on the furniture with Miracle Whip (now I understand the miracle part…I’m a mayo girl, myself) and fix a broken dishwasher with Kool-Aid. Apparently, he’s got a million of ‘em.
Do you have any weird uses for brand name products — besides what the manufacturer thinks is the intended use? Leave a comment below.
Originally posted 2009-02-10 21:01:37.
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