Not too sure what Confucius would say, but I definitely think it is a bridge too far.
The outer limits of dining — and advertising — has been breached by OpenFortune.
It’s been around for nine years but didn’t pop up in one of our favorite Chinese restaurants —Amazing Kitchen in Tracy — until Saturday.
I typically take fortune cookies with a grain of salt.
I’ll open them, read the fortune, mentally roll my eyes, make a dismissive comment or joke, eat the cookie and then toss the fortune with the other “trash” on my plate that typically consists of a soiled napkin.
It’s one of life’s extremely small moments of entertainment.
Not anymore.
OpenFortune has made its way into the fortune cookies Amazing Kitchen serves.
It is 100 percent unadulterated advertising on a small rectangular Band-Aid sized piece of paper.
The one I opened had a fortune that read, “This cookie doesn’t know anything about you, as it should be.”
Then below it were the same “lucky numbers” listed “23, 27, 31, 43, 48, 52” that also was on the other fortune above the name of the leading candidate for the most obnoxious and obtrusive advertising company, OpenFortune.”
The typically blank flip side” had different messages.
One read, “Some cookies tell your fortune. Others track it.”
Below that it read “Protect yourself for $2.49/mo(nth)” with a QR code and the company’s name that is paying to leave an unwelcome after taste with your meal, Express VPN.
If you are from the Stone Age or Confucius’ time which is when the term tweet was reserved exclusively for live birds and “X” was known as a way to engage people in Tic-Tac-Toe and not a way to exchange insults, VPN is shorthand for virtual privacy networks.
With a little luck someone might invent an AFFC or an advertising free fortune cookie.
The second spared the diner a play on words and when straight to the pitch: “The world’s #1 VPN. Now at $2.49/mo(nth)” along with Express VPN’s name and the prerequisite QR code to cap your mixed vegetables, fried wonton, egg roll, and steamed rice with a massive helping of distasteful advertising.
The company with 20 employees and $2.6 million in annual revenue likes to say they offer advertisers a respite from a world “drowning in digital noise.”
How about giving people “drowning in a world with advertising” a break from intrusive advertising?
The minor miracle, if that, is fortune cookies that originated on American soil in the late 19th century and researchers say were popularized by Japanese and Chinese immigrants in California where a lot of trends start were advertising free for more than a century.
Now there are 2 billion plus fortune cookies with advertising “baked in” opened in a given year in 47,000 restaurants.
Perhaps the real miracle is we didn’t come across the kill-joy fortune cookies before this past weekend.
In fairness, advertising in fortune cookies isn’t as obnoxious as mini-TV screens playing advertising videos that popped up in some men’s restrooms above urinals in the 1990s and have largely disappeared.
Occasionally, you will find some restrooms with advertising placards strategically placed above urinals.
Say what you want about outhouses of yesteryear, but at least “advertising” was put to good use thanks to the Sears catalogue and old phone books.
Speaking of toilets, restaurants, and untapped advertising markets, perhaps the next big thing for bold thinkers such as Shawn Porat and Matt Williams who co-founded OpenFortune in 2017 when it comes to contaminating every possible place in day-to-day life with advertising to earn a living might just be commercial toilet paper.
That way they could add restaurant restrooms onto their offerings for clients that want to avoid “the digital noise.” What better way to do so is to come up with an advertising medium where the sun doesn’t even shine?
In defense of Williams and Porat, restaurants have flirted with advertising on their menus with varying degrees of success over the years.
But those are fleeting moments.
It would make more sense to advertise on napkins that are be part of the entire dining process.
There could be a tie in such as “Ajax is stronger than dirt” or Oxi Clean for those tough food stains on clothing.
Then there are the gas pump TV screens.
At least they serve a purpose.
They gave drivers a break from texting and driving
There is little doubt there are plenty of “mediums” for advertisers from collegiate sports jerseys to the side of bus stop shelters.
Fortune cookie as advertising was probably inevitable.
But to be honest, what advertiser wants to leave a bad taste in a potential customer’s mouth?
After all, if that fortune cookie is stale or as tasteful as cardboard, the advertising message will get lost, right?
Not in a world that gave us gems such as “Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should” or “you’ve got your own cigarette now baby, you’ve come a long, long way.”
