Advertising that helps and advertising that made me “SMH”

Random post.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I volunteered with the United Way to pass out door tags to lower income apartment communities in south Orlando.  All in all, the organization passed out 10,000 of these tags which will hopefully help put money back in families pockets.  I’m really glad we did it that day since a “fast return” company had recently also passed out fliers and they were charging people a “special rate” to get their returns fast.  All the while the United Way has offered locations that will do them for free!

And then driving down 17/92 in Winter Park two Sundays ago, I saw this guy at the corner.

How many people guessed it was a new scripted mini-series on The Discovery Channel based on a book about six strangers who set off to a remote frontier town called Klondike to seek their fortunes during the 1890’s gold rush?  Anyone?

Now, of course, I don’t watch much TV, so if there have been ads across all of cable-world blasting information about this series, I apologize for my cattiness, but I just don’t think this as a stand alone, or even as a part of the media mix, carries a whole lot of weight and would drive people to want to learn more (well, except for me, as I am the Media Nerd).

Now, if they had bought a real billboard, or perhaps one of those new-fangled LED ones that just happens to be less than a mile up the street from where this guy was standing… 😉