King of the crumbling road!
In celebration of President Joe Biden’s The American Jobs Plan, a multi-trillion-dollar initiative to restore the nation’s self-esteem through gigantic infrastructure blender drinks, the Fabulous Honey Parker and yours truly are utilizing the original national infrastructure project that helped Make America Great In The First Place. (MAGIFP! Put that on a hat!) We are grateful that this antique infrastructure project has not collapsed enormous Appalachian mountains upon us upon us nor dumped into the mighty Mississippi River. Honey and I are driving cross country on the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. You may know that system by its more prosaic name, the Interstate Highway system. Or, as the kids call it... That crumbling stretch of road to nowhere flanked by endless cornfields. One of the great things about the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways is the examples of advertising genius that it offers us. Billboards, billboards, billboards! The only thing more plentiful than billboards is corn stalks! Advertising greats like Howard Gossage and David Ogilvy were notorious for their hatred of billboards. Yet billboards remain, a scourge, a pox, a blight upon the nation’s countryside. So let’s make the best of them and see what genius they have to offer us. For us, today, it is this tagline that came from a billboard in Somewhere, Ohio. Ready? “We’re good at what we do!” I’d love to tell you what that’s a tagline for. But I can’t. I don’t remember. Neither does Honey. What we do remember is reading it, having a great laugh, and then applying it to every possible advertising campaign we could think of. McDonald’s. “We’re good at what we do!” Ford Trucks. “We’re good at what we do!” Legal Zoom. “We’re good at what we do!” Pampers. “We’re good at what we do!” Though, in fairness, maybe the latter should be, “We’re good for what babies doo!” And this tagline has replaced (at least for the moment) our other favorite, all-purpose tagline, to wit... “It doesn’t smell like urine!” That’s the punchline to a long story of advertising from a long time ago in a land far, far away. Yet, it still resonates for us and periodically makes us laugh because we often exhibit the same, sophisticated sense of humor as adolescent children hopped up on Pop-Rocks and Coca-Cola. But I digress. That notwithstanding, roadside advertising lesson of the day is… If your tagline is so generic that it can easily be applied to any business, it’s not a tagline. McDonald’s. “We’ll leave the light on for you.” Ford Trucks. “We’ll leave the light on for you.” Legal Zoom. “We’ll leave the light on for you.” Pampers. “We’ll leave the light on for you.” Doesn’t work on any of ‘em, does it? But when you apply it to a chain of budget motels with a folksy demeanor, things change. And suddenly, you feel better about that cheap motel. Here’s to feeling better about your advertising and infrastructure and national self-worth in the wake of Easter Sunday. More roadside advertising glee to come… Cheers, Blaine Parker Your Lean, Mean Creative Director in Park City LIGHTNING BRANDING ON AMAZON The Kindle edition of our new book is now available at Amazon for the bargain price of $19.95. For details about our new Lightning Branding courses, both do-it-yourself and we-do-it-with-you editions, click here. (There's even a video of us!)
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AuthorBlaine Parker is prone to ranting about any and all things related to brand. In many ways, he is a professional curmudgeon. While there is no known vaccine for this, the condition is also not contagious. Unless you choose it to be so. Archives
February 2022
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