I saw my sister Linda when I visited Minnesota over the holidays.
Linda is the one who came up with the title Freakonomics. She was complaining how unfair it is that everywhere she looks, she sees people ripping off her idea. I asked her what she was talking about, and she offered up lame examples like “Obamanomics.”
I reminded her that the term “Reaganomics” existed long before Freakonomics, and I chided her for being egotistical.
That was before I saw the new 3conomics campaign from Wendy’s.
and 
. You can also watch it on 
Title is one thing- the idea behind it is another- Have known for a while- one more example of “crafty-man ship!” Thanks to Richard Sennet- for in-put and real resolve to keep it dignified. I like his’ style-
Let’s just hope they don’t shorten the whole thing to CONomics.
I know the I did a double take the first time I heard that Wendy’s commercial, “Did he just say FREAKonomics?”
Eeekonomics is the key nugget.
I always thought the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was a huge rip from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
I would imagine the marketing guys came up with “3conomics” on paper before they said it out loud, where it is just “Economics” with the E turned backwards.
Maybe after they said it out loud they realized a similarity, but if they are the sort of people who say “ee-conomics” rather than “eh-conomics” it’s still not similar enough to cause any hand wringin, imo.
Of course, I’ve never come up with a clever, natural sounding play on words that proved as popular as ‘freakonomics’ and maybe if I had that asset to protect I would be a bigger advocate for intellectual property rights.
Try this one: geekonomics. That made me laugh!
Gee-Whiz!
I wanted to comment on this last week, when I first noticed this campaign. My opinion: don’t kid yourself, it’s a blatant rip-off of Freakonomics.
The good thing is that it is complementary marketing, because it darn sure makes people think about Freakonomics.