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June 17, 2005 12:03 AM

Broken: Footsmart ad

FootdumbChristopher Bergeron writes:

This is a picture from a Footsmart ad in a Sky Mall on a United Airlines plane. It you look closely it says "right foot" on the right side, and "left foot" on the left side, but the cutouts and the footprints are reversed! Maybe they should call it Footdumb?

Comments:

i saw that ad back in febuary, but did not notice that error

Posted by: Joltin Joe at June 17, 2005 12:21 AM

funny, check out a correct pic ontheir website

http://www.footsmart.com/ProductList.aspx?ProductCategoryId=17

Posted by: Joltin Joe at June 17, 2005 12:23 AM

I like the bottom where it says "Center Heel." What do you do with your left and right heel? And what if I don't have a Center Heel?

Posted by: Robert at June 17, 2005 12:25 AM

that means put your heel in the center

Posted by: Joltin Joe at June 17, 2005 12:34 AM

If you look at the shapes of the blue foam parts, the one with the right foot imprint was clearly made to accomodate the right foot, it's just labeled "left foot". Same for the other foam part. Weird.

Posted by: Jacques Troux at June 17, 2005 01:21 AM

Agreed, it's confusing and looks funny, but I think I know why they did it this way.

If you stood with your left foot, for example, off to the left side of the box to make an impression of your right foot on the right side of the box, your feet would be 12" or more apart. Harder to maintain balance or get an accurate impression- your right foot would tend to push out to the right.

The way it's set up as pictured, you can stand with your feet just a few inches apart to make the impression. Certainly easier to maintain balance with that stance.

Posted by: Mark Crummett at June 17, 2005 02:28 AM

here's what I think you do. Normally when you shape your feet in this thing, you stnad in both at the same time, so that both sides of the memory foam are drepressed together. This will compensate if you have a leg slightly longer than the other. But, standing that way probably doesn't make the best photo in the world, so the photographer decided to get an attractive leg/foot and have it put next to a prepressed piece of foam. I think the photographer ignored the directions on the box and took these pictures, which causes confusion and is broken.

Posted by: Joshua Wood at June 17, 2005 06:02 AM

This is just dumb. Footdumb. These are the kinds of things that make me feel like all of humanity is stupid. Most of the stuff on this site would have been caught & fixed if any of these stupid companies HIRED A FACTCHECKER! Ugghhh...

/end rant

Posted by: Bob at June 17, 2005 08:56 AM

Mark Crummett -

That might be true. It makes sense to me. But, then they should have labeled it to indicate it that way. What's broken is the labels and the cutouts don't match.

Posted by: a cheesepuff at June 17, 2005 10:17 AM

Off-topic for this post, but here's some good brokenness reported elsewhere today:

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/7239

Posted by: mph at June 17, 2005 11:55 AM

I'd be willing to bet that the design (although not the labeling in the photo) is deliberate. It forces the user to only make an impression of one foot at a time instead of attempting to stand with both feet in the foam at once. I'd also venture a guess that the instructions specifically say not to do both feet at once, to make the impressions while sitting down so full body weight isn't on the foam, or to be careful not to rock or turn the foot in any way (or some combination of the above). This would ensure that the moulding is halfway accurate, whereas rocking would create an impression wider than the foot itself and placing body weight on the foot would (due to uneven pressure) create an improper impression of the sole.

In other words, the box design is deliberate and correct for its purpose, but the ad design (apparently a flipped photo that someone photoshopped the words back onto right-ways-round) is still broken.

Posted by: Erich at June 17, 2005 02:50 PM

first the model's right foot is "being removed"from the panel that says left and the formation of the box exposing the blue foam the one that says left would fit right and right would fit left not the way as mentioned by troux finally I would expect that since this is to create custom made insoles the proper measurements would be made while standing since that's when insoles are needed(just a guess) anyway definitely broken.

Posted by: kent at June 17, 2005 10:13 PM

I am betting that the only thing broken is the labels.

It makes sense to do only one foot impression at a time, to maximize control and accuracy in making the impression. Thus, you stand on the LEFT side to impress the right foot, and on the RIGHT side to impress the left foot.

It's the labels that are backwards.

Posted by: DaveC426913 at June 21, 2005 12:44 PM

Hey! did anyone of the brain trusts on this message board even stop to think that maybe, just maybe, the pic was shot correctly and it got flopped to accomodate the layout/copy and the "left" and "right" wordage was changed to make it readable. Things happen in production that those who dont know anything about the industry have no clue about. I guess it gives people with too much time on their hands something to complain about.

Posted by: maximus74 at June 27, 2005 04:34 PM

I'm william aka bloggywill!

I think they had there mind reversed.

Posted by: William at July 4, 2005 08:42 AM

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