The governor of our fair state, Utah that is, is really rich. I don’t tell you this for the ‘gee-whiz’ of it; I tell you because he has a “rich wife.” You know the type—she looks just like the rest of us, just with bigger hair, more make up and shoulder pads in her gold dresses.
Anyway, said governor’s “rich wife” has a string of billboards that she has posted all over the state that say words like “loser” and “big-haired” and “rich wife” and stuff like that. I’ve only seen one of the billboards, and the only reason I even noticed it is because it replaced the billboard with my wife Limpy’s picture on it. It says loser (the billboard, not my wife.) They highlighted the campaign on the news and told us all how brilliant the governor’s trophy wife is. I know there are other signs, I just don’t know where they are or what they say.
Suffice it to say that there are billboards around town with derogatory words on them. The problem with the billboards is they only convey one message. That is, they only say one word on them and then they don’t have any additional information. No website. No information about The Foundation for the Betterment of Utah, “the backward state.” No nothing—just a derogatory word.
The news report said some people felt “uncomfortable” with the signs, which is exactly what Mrs. “Rich Wife” wanted people to feel. Unfortunately, the campaign was poorly conceived.
Most of the time people we call “advertisers” want us to perform an action after we have finished looking at their ad. For example McDonalds usually puts a brilliant picture of a hamburger on the billboard, wants you to feel hungry, and THEN GIVES YOU ADDITIONAL INFORMATION so you can act on your new found urge.
Gold’s Gym usually posts the picture of the extremely attractive body, to either make you want to own a body like that or to date one. THEN THEY GIVE YOU DETAILS about gym locations or a phone number of the model or something. Without the additional information, however, the ‘burger’ is just an advocacy for food in general, and the ‘body’ is just soft porn.
Memo to the governor’s wife: Hire an ad agency or ME for that matter. Maybe hire SOMEBODY. ANYBODY. Otherwise, you are just the ‘D-list’ of wordsmiths.