A Facebook group recently convinced the city of Portland to take down the billboard shown above. According to AdWeek.com “The group called Clear Channel, which owns the billboard space, to complain. Clear Channel then asked the advertiser for a phone number that the activists could use to call directly, but the advertiser refused to provide one—so Clear Channel took down the ads. Cue the celebratory fattie now surely being passed around.”
Not to say that all Republicans share this view of marijuana, but it is safe to say that whoever made this ad was a republican.
Too be fair, that ad isn’t all bad. What I like about the ad is that it is so universal.
“Cats, what’s good about them? Nothing.”
“Kobe Bryant, what’s good about him? Nothing.”
“Running, what’s good about it? Nothing.”
Keep the picture the same and the context of the ad changes completely.
I wish I could have been in the room while the ad was being created. I wonder if there was one person running the show, ignoring all of the reasonable people showing discouragement. Or if there was a group of people convincing each other that they had finally found a way to stop high school kids from rolling blunts and playing Call of Duty.
“What if we put a picture of a zombie on the right hand side of the billboard, and on the left hand side we will put something like, ‘Weed is not good’?”
“I like the zombie part. I like that a lot. You are really on to something there, but what I think we can come up with something more impactful to drive the message home.”
“Hmm…”
“I GOT IT!”
I can imagine the group gathered around they MacBook, looking at the ad they created on Photoshop CS2 with pride as they typed in their brilliantly crafted, and awkwardly spaced, tagline, and thinking to themselves, “We did it. We designed the billboard that will save America.”
Unfortunately, thanks to a bunch of meddling Facebook users, America is not yet safe.