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captainsblogThat was the occasional headline of little column-filling snippets from the New Yorker (other bits like it were titled "Constabulary Notes from All Over"), used far more often back in the day when a last-minute edit would leave a column inch or two of empty space and the piece couldn't be instantly re-set in a slightly larger font.
My experience with such a slogan today was mostly visual, not verbal, and bookended a long and largely annoying workday, where instead of attending the all-day hearing I'd prepared for, lost sleep over, and left town at ass o'clock to get to by 9 a.m., my client showed up literally seconds before the 10 a.m. scheduled start, without any of the documents that had been subpoenaed from him at the near-last minute (their fault, not his), and we wound up rescheduling the whole damn thing to mid-October.
Moments after exiting the Thruway and starting up the road into Rochester, I passed this rolling advert. I've seen campaigns of its ilk before, but never a campaign of quite this ick. The van ahead of me was promoting, essentially, itself- a service that plasters your vehicle, or somebody else's, with your current slogan, logo or whatever. Think the guys who pay college kids to put a bigass Red Bull can on top of their beater, only more annoying.
The tag line on this one was of the type I've seen many times on billboards, subway headers and whatnot: Does such-and-such advertising work? You're reading THIS, aren't you? I'm way too meta in ordinary life to buy into crap like that, and I usually subliminally reply, Not any more, I'm not!
This one left a more indelible visual impression, though- enough so that, hours after my adjournment, post-mortem of it with the client, delivery of a bicycle to the kid, noms, and one last-minute meeting with another client, I was back on my way to Buffalo- and, once again, behind the same gorram van. This time, I was prepared, and snapped a shit, urr, shot of it:
The license plate, and the lousy focus, conspire to mess the message, but you get the idea: Does vehicle advertising work? IT JUST DID!
My reply this time, though? Would it work a lot better if it didn't look like that dude was taking a dump from inside the back of your van? IT SURE WOULD!
I just pray I don't see the damn thing a third time. I'd half expect Beetlejuice to jump out of the back of those rear doors and start looking around for Elvis in the expanded "luggage compartment" of my car.
My experience with such a slogan today was mostly visual, not verbal, and bookended a long and largely annoying workday, where instead of attending the all-day hearing I'd prepared for, lost sleep over, and left town at ass o'clock to get to by 9 a.m., my client showed up literally seconds before the 10 a.m. scheduled start, without any of the documents that had been subpoenaed from him at the near-last minute (their fault, not his), and we wound up rescheduling the whole damn thing to mid-October.
Moments after exiting the Thruway and starting up the road into Rochester, I passed this rolling advert. I've seen campaigns of its ilk before, but never a campaign of quite this ick. The van ahead of me was promoting, essentially, itself- a service that plasters your vehicle, or somebody else's, with your current slogan, logo or whatever. Think the guys who pay college kids to put a bigass Red Bull can on top of their beater, only more annoying.
The tag line on this one was of the type I've seen many times on billboards, subway headers and whatnot: Does such-and-such advertising work? You're reading THIS, aren't you? I'm way too meta in ordinary life to buy into crap like that, and I usually subliminally reply, Not any more, I'm not!
This one left a more indelible visual impression, though- enough so that, hours after my adjournment, post-mortem of it with the client, delivery of a bicycle to the kid, noms, and one last-minute meeting with another client, I was back on my way to Buffalo- and, once again, behind the same gorram van. This time, I was prepared, and snapped a shit, urr, shot of it:
The license plate, and the lousy focus, conspire to mess the message, but you get the idea: Does vehicle advertising work? IT JUST DID!
My reply this time, though? Would it work a lot better if it didn't look like that dude was taking a dump from inside the back of your van? IT SURE WOULD!
I just pray I don't see the damn thing a third time. I'd half expect Beetlejuice to jump out of the back of those rear doors and start looking around for Elvis in the expanded "luggage compartment" of my car.
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Date: 2011-09-09 01:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-09 09:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-10 07:17 pm (UTC)