The Yelling Man
Two recent events cause me to chuckle, the first being the selection of Staples’ Yelling Man as Consumerist.com’s first Worst Ad in America Awards. The vote of more than 100,000 consumers confirms that, no matter how low the price, it’s not worth damaging your hearing.
The irony of course is that the spot, created by McCann Erickson, is considered a big success because people remember the character when they need office supplies. Is it merely a coincidence that the same week Congress passed the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, or CALM?
The second event was last week’s unveiling of the new Goldman Sachs ad campaign, including the tag line “Progress is Everyone’s Business.” Of course this inspired the amateur tag line writers to go to work. Barry Ritzholtz’ blog got a lot of traction when the radio program Marketplace mentioned his “contest” for an alternative tag line, noting the worthy submission by Patty Edwards:
Government Bailout…29 billion.
SEC Settlement…550 million
Doing God’s work? Priceless.
There are a lot of crude suggestions on those pages that aren’t particularly funny with a few gems in between. Currently I’m favoring…
Making you forget about Bernie Madoff one CDO at a time
