Choice Shonky Awards

Reporter: James Thomas
Broadcast Date: November 25, 2008

Some products and services try to pull cut corners so Choice took a look at some of the poorer performers in 2008.

Christopher Zinn from Choice says 2008 has been a stellar year for shonky products and services.

"What we're particularly seeing this year is while the actual products and services might be better designed and safer, it's the marketing people who are really going crazy and spinning like heck," he said.

For insidious packaging and marketing, the first Shonky goes to the 4 per cent alcohol vodka chocolate Mudshake.

Mr Zinn said 51 per cent of teenage males could not tell that it contained any alcohol.

"It's so well disguised as a milkshake or a mudshake," he said.

"We thought that was a shonky for muddied disguise."

What came first? The hype or the free range egg? The hype according to Choice, who said there is no such thing as a free range egg.

"It looks like the chooks have an architect designed home to live in," Zinn said.

He said there is no legal definition of "free range" in Australia.

"The Australian Egg Corporation has a definition but they allow 14 birds per square metre," he said.

"Battery hens are allowed 18 birds per square metre, it's hardly any difference."

Glaceau Water, Coca Cola's version of vitamin water, was next on Choices' shame file.

"This is really essentially a lolly water dressed up as some sort of fruit drink," Mr Zinn said.

"Essentially it's full of sugar, it's not full of fruit juice and for that again, it gets a Shonky."

Of all the products flogging its green credentials, domestic cleaner Hurricane's Planet Green earned a gold medal in deceit.

The products claimed to be phosphate-free, biodegradable and recyclable packaging.

"The trigger assembly isn't recyclable, biodegradable, most of the contents are not part of the active ingredients and most of these cleaners are phosphate free anyway," Mr Zinn said.

The Luxury Air Robe body dryer topped the list for ridiculous ideas and shonky marketing.

"It may work but basically they came up with some pretty shonky figures to justify you save money to launder your towels by having this huge energy guzzler in your ceiling."

Of the hundreds of appliances Choice tested this year, the You'll Love Coles steam iron was voted the most universally hated by testers.

"It dragged, it stuck," Mr Zinn said.

"It leaked water, it did everything an iron isn't meant to."