Looser: Fed-Ex Kinko's

This week's Looser Award (the Curmudgeon's weekly award to an advertiser who portrays younger men as dead-end losers, misspelled as only a loser would) goes to Fed-Ex Kinko's for its Cinco de Mayo ad.

Yes, as with all these ads, it's supposed to be funny.

By the way, can you think of a more awkward name than "Fed-Ex Kinko's"?

In the Cinco ad, a group of office geeks gather around a colorful donkey pinata to celebrate the Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo. Most of the participants are younger men in typical bland office attire. There are one or two women hanging around the periphery.

The male office manager hands a stick to a tall skinny male colleague who is blindfolded, who then proceeds to smash the crap out of the copy machine while trying to hit the dangling pinata.

Afterwards, the manager says, "uh, ok, I guess that's enough celebration for now." (Or something like that.)

Intended message: call Kinko's when the idiots in your office bust the copier.

Conveyed message: office work is a dead-end for loser guys.

Memo to fellow Yalie, Fedex CEO Fred Smith (a former marine, to boot): are these the type of guys who work in your offices? Keep it up and they will be!