With Betsy Lerner’s recent post about the various selling tools we Americans have in our extensive capitalist arsenal on my mind, I had to laugh when I saw a grey-haired man standing on the side of the road of one of Seattle’s most expensive, exclusive, exalted, excruciating neighborhoods wearing a sandwich board advertising his architectural services. He was waving.
Righty-o. There you are on your way from Pilates to the spa to get your nails manicured and your hair styled because, you know, it’s Wednesday, and you’re about to call the contractor about redoing the kitchen remodel again since white is so two-thousand-and—wait! Look! There’s an architect right there by the bus stop! Why not call him instead of the firm you’ve been using for a hundred years because, well, there he is?!
Then I pulled up behind a Seattle Metro bus, the backside of which asked whether I have relapsing Multiple Sclerosis and am looking to change my MS medications—if so, a local health center has just the clinical trial for me.
Seriously? Not just MS, but relapsing MS? And not just relapsing MS but relapsing MS and looking to change my meds? What percent of the population can that ad be targeting? 0.0007%? Is relapsing, drug-unsatisfied MS among people driving cars right behind buses much more prevalent than I’d realized?
Would you hire an architect who advertised himself with a sandwich board or allow your marketing department to advertise your clinic’s highly specific drug trial on the back of a bus? Am I missing something here?
Ha! I saw that architect yesterday and thought WTF?
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