It takes a really special set of circumstances for me to use the word “sleazy”. To me, it conjures up images of the greasy guy in college who’d offer women backrubs and then expand the area being rubbed… never enough that it was blatent groping, just enough to make people go “eeewwww”.

HP in general is in the sleazy territory right now – c’mon people, you’re all bright, you know what you did to trace that leak was wrong – but what’s worse in some ways for me is to see a company whose ethos and products I once admired descend into the realm of sleazy marketing.

What am I talking about? HP’s new camera feature, which advertises a “thinning” feature.

No, I only wish I were kidding.

Now, you can take pictures of normal, healthy people and make them look like heroin addicts.

Yes, the company that was originally known for excessively honest marketing (Silicon Valley Joke: if HP had invented Sushi, they would have called it “HP Cold Dead Fish model X54Q29 Series S”), and then for rather beautiful if excessively abstract marketing (seen that TV commercial where people hold up picture frames and capture off the live video of the commercial in real-time?), is now engaging in sleazy “hey, let’s feature photos of women looking thinner” marketing.

Now, technically, the feature is kind of odd and amusing. If they called it “funhouse”, (thicker and thinner), it’d be less offensive. Of course, it also wouldn’t sell as well. So instead, we get the "evilly brilliant" approach – like Abercrombie, HP will get a ton of (largely negative) media attention, and then change the marketing, and people will forget about the controversy quickly but remember the camera.

But I still say it’s sleazy. C’mon, HP – aren’t you in enough trouble, imagewise? How about focusing on value provided instead of sex. Always worked for me – not to say I can’t give a mean backrub, just that I reserve it for more appropriate circumstances.

[ps: Please buy my book. http://buynow.stupidmarketing.com -- and tell your friends!]