Brilliance in Advertising

Or the lack of it. Driving in to work this morning, I saw a billboard. But not just any billboard, no, this one has got to represent the end of somebody's marketing career. I present to you in all its glory, the worst marketing phrase I can think of:


So evidently in the land of teenage vampires, they now not only sparkle, but take a few runs down a Slip n Slide coated in baby oil before lounging around in front of a rampant gang of renegade airbrush artists.

But what really calls attention is the brilliance of the tagline here. "Catch VD." Or, to translate to real-people language from marketingspeak, "Please tune in to our show which we have just compared to the thing you should most avoid lest your genitalia rot. We promise it's not as bad as Herpes, nor as disgusting as the clap, and far less lethal than HIV. It is, however, every bit as entertaining as any of these."

Can you imagine the presentation for this? "Johnson, you're up. Make it good this time, Johnson. You're still on thin ice after the "TSA: friendlier than your grandmother" debacle. Well, get a move on, man!"

"Er, umm...yes sir. Well, we have vampires, right? And they write these diaries...so I was thinking that we could do something that really pops! You know, like a zit! Teenieboppers can relate to zits, even though vampires never get them, even though they roll around in oil all the time."

"Johnson, get to the point."

"Uh, ok, uhm...well, the initals for the show are VD, right? So we'll try something simple...Watch VD!"

"Johnson, that sucks. Make it catchier, or you're fired!"

(Incidentally, I picture Johnson's boss like Cosmo Spacely, of Spacely's Sprockets)
Of course, Johnson goes back to his desk, stewing for hours on how to make it "Catchier."
EUREKA!!! CATCH VD!!!, he surely thought.

In my imagination, that's why Johnson will be collecting unemployment next week.