Aldi, Qantas, L’Oreal and Uncle Tobys among major brands winning Choice awards for shonkiness
Australia’s shonkiest brands have been named and shamed by campaigning consumer organisation Choice, with Loreal, Qantas and Unlce Tobys among those in the firing line.
They were among the brands named in Choice’s Shonky Awards which were announced today.
Choice gave the awards to:
• Aldi’s Chefs’ Cupboard and Massell liquid stocks – “Reconstituted from plain old stock cubes”
• Reegen Micro Plug – “Claims to reduce your power bills by 30% – it doesn’t”
• L’Oreal Elvive Shampoo, Conditioner and Serum – “For selling dubious statistics and pseudoscience”
• Uncle Tobys Honey Oat Crisps – “For shrinking the product but not the unit price”
• Tiffany FP 807 Food processor – “Not up to the job of even shredding cheese”
• Tel Pacific prepaid phone cards- “For ridiculous hidden fees and charges”
• Credit protection insurance – “For not being worth the paper it’s written on”
• Qantas – “For its sky-high credit card surcharge of $7.70 per passenger”
Choice’s Christopher Zinn said: “While the winners might be cringing in the boardrooms we want consumers to enjoy a good laugh and be more demanding before accepting tricky labelling, bogus fees and charges and worthless devices.”
October 28th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
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Comments
28 Oct 09
2:04 pm
How small, weak, thin and watered-down can products get before we don’t buy them? Eg., jam, cordial, chocolates, biscuits, toilet paper. @prlab
28 Oct 09
2:08 pm
Hi Tim,
It was great to see a good mix of media AND bloggers from all sectors at the event today. Vanesssa Wagner was hilarious as the official ‘demonstrator’ too.
Anyone wanting to follow or comment on any of the winners from today’s event can do so on twitter – #shonkys
28 Oct 09
4:12 pm
I still find it very weird the amount of power Choice have. There reviews are often biased and incorrect and I personally don’t trust anything they say- especially when they come from Christoper Zinn. He constantly manipulates quotes and never tests products properly.
28 Oct 09
4:29 pm
I’m not quite sure how the Choice reviews could be seen as biased, given that they actually pay for everything that they test. I think they have been around for almost 50 years, so maybe their power comes from being trusted by the majority of Australians, something that money can’t buy.
28 Oct 09
4:40 pm
Uncle Tobys Honey Oat Crisps aren’t the only one at it of course. Cadbury, Mars et al have all been doing it for a while. Good on Cascade though, for realising they were wrong and changing their bottle size back earlier in the year.
28 Oct 09
5:14 pm
as an l’oreal elvive loyalist i am both shocked, saddened and disappointed.
28 Oct 09
5:21 pm
Cosmetics,we make shit up.
That’s fried gold right there.
Nine out of ten experts agree (credit to The Gruen Transfer).
28 Oct 09
7:19 pm
Zinn is a journalist I doubt if he does any testing. That’s done by technicians, engineers and scientists.
28 Oct 09
11:36 pm
“There reviews are often biased and incorrect”
So which shonk do you work for? Uncle Toby’s? Qantas? Or Tiffany, the brand that loses a battle with a block of cheese?
29 Oct 09
9:47 am
Isn’t the Reegen ad a send up anyway???
29 Oct 09
12:26 pm
All the ads above are sendups, anothermous. I probably should have explained – they were all played during the ceremony.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
29 Oct 09
2:56 pm
@David – As the guy responsible for the cosmetics vid AND a massive Simon Pegg / Nick Frost fan, I’d just like to say thanks for the ‘fried gold’ compliment. It made my day. In fact, I’ll probably put it on my CV.
@Tim – big thanks for posting these! There’s a highlights vid, too, but that would probably be overkill