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June 6th, 2007
08:17 am - Quality of Product is Essential to Continuing Success
Currently the top ad banner on the boston.com page I'm reading is for one of those stupid "Wacky Video" sites, you know, the kind that mostly seem to feature cuh-razy car wrecks and rednecks flying off their ATVs.
The left-hand side of the ad banner reads, and I'm copying this verbatim and including a [sic] for you to stick as you see fit:Ouch!
Thats gotta hurt!
Yes, yes it does.
Oh, they finally switched the Reebok ad on the ad kiosk outside South Station. I don't know if the inside banners were switched as well; I wasn't looking in that direction today. At any rate, the ad on the outdoor sign is now another one of those heavily-stylized day-glo checkerboard-and-curved-neon "Welcome To The 80s, iPod People" ads we've already seen.
The Helpful Comma is still affixed to the kiosk glass. Right now, though, it has little to no effect on its surroundings.
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![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/28842343/6854759) | | From: |  qxam |
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| Date: | June 6th, 2007 01:27 pm (UTC) |
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Someone so inclined could probably re-purpose that Helpful Comma into service as a Helpful Apostrophe Substitute... The giant banners are still hanging inside South Station. Mostly, I don't get the ad campaign. I think some of the photographs are wonderful--particularly the one with the woman who has collapsed to tears. Powerful. But the message "run easy" chafes with me as an athlete. I'm not a runner, but if it said "bike easy", I'd be pissed at them. Don't make light of my efforts! Laud me! Tell me how much you empathize with me. But your message, now, says "you screwed yourself, give up and take it easy!" That's not what they intended, I'm sure, but that's what I think, every time. I can see where Reebok wanted to go on this one -- a direct, intentional 180 from the "Push yourself, stretch yourself, work through the burn" motivational ads from other sports apparel companies. (Hell, I bet Reebok's done it before.) I guess it was an attempt to reach out to the "casual athletic" demographic, whatever that could mean. It comes off as way too smarmy, though, and doesn't work.
The images were powerful, but as I said in a previous comment, I wonder how those athletes feel to know that their moments of agony and (in some cases) failure have been captured, blown up to super proportions and used as advertising. All I can think of is hearing that tagline in a Ron Burgandy voice.
"You run easy, Boston!"
I suspect this is not their intention, either. Shame, cause that would've been a campaign what WORKED. Rbk (when did they shorten their name from Reebok?) has an animated ad in the Red Line subway, inbound between Harvard and Central stations. Part of the same campaign? Or, as the locals call it, Pr. Yep. I've noticed that one more often than any particular "still" ads (I leave it to wiser heads than mine to decide if old school flipbook animation is "still" or not), because I tend to see that one every day. | | i found your apostrophe | (Link) |
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On a local marquee: GILLIAN WELCH
AUGUST 15, 2007
TIX'S ON SALE 6/15 Not even grammatical fuckery will stop me from buying tix's to Gillian Welch, though. That's how strong my love is. |
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