So you think this is a good selling point, huh?

I was in San Jose, California last week, and across the street from the hotel I was staying at was a specialty chocolate/fudge/candy store. This being the Halloween season, they decided to decorate in the spirit of the time. This decision manifested itself in the form of a humongoid plastic blowup spider that was against the wall above the door, almost as if it had climbed down from the roof and was heading for the front door. Now, when I say that it's humongoid, I'm not exaggerating. You know how some car dealerships put blowup creatures like pandas or Godzilla or whatever on top of one of their buildings? Yeah, kinda like that size. Now, since it was plastic, it wasn't hairy or anything, and I could maybe see using something like for a store that sells costumes or a pet store or a home improvement store or something else. But a store that sells candy and goodies? They think that people are going to see the big giant spider (it's hard to miss, so in that sense, it's an eye-catcher) and think, "Wow, look at that spider! We've got to go into that candy store!"

The worse example I've seen of something like this is from multiple years ago. Same time of year, and I went into Subway (a sandwich store, for those of you who don't know it) to get some dinner. They have a couple different kinds of bread baguettes that you can choose for your sandwich. On the samples that show you the different kinds of bread and what they look like, they had put small plastic spiders all over the bread. OK, so I've got friends who are terrified of spiders, and thankfully, I'm not one of them, so I didn't run screaming out of there. But, hello, we're talking FOOD here, people, and you think that having spiders all over them is supposed to be appealing and appetizing? And these weren't goofy spiders or anything like that - at a quick glance, they look like the real thing. Yeah, spiders crawling all over the bread - mmmm, I'm hungry, where's dinner?