Monday, May 23, 2005
Discovering the joys of advertising gimmicks
hi,
The other day I happened to be sitting in Picadilly gardens in manchester, enjoyng the afternoon sun (which happens all too rarely), when my sixth sense, which is finely tuned for picking up any faint signs of surreal or silly behaviour, started screaming at me.
I turned round to see perhaps ten or fifteen men dressed in white overalls and builders' hats, in a line, one behind the other, following a woman who seemed totally oblivious to the 'tail' she had suddenly acquired.
She eventually noticed the reaction she was causing to the general public and turned round in confusion to see what was going on. The blokes in white (hereafter known as BiWs) then did a fairly creditable impression of her being surprised, enhanced by the fat that there were fifteen of them doing it in unison.
The silly antics then continued in a similar way with the BiWs targeting many other unsuspecting people. After a while I noticed that they weren't simply builders who'd got bored and decided to do somerhing a little different for the afternoon, but were carrying little briefcases advertising Discovery Channel. I was a little disappointed by this, but the guys were clearly enjoying themselves as well as simply doing their job. It's a shame I didn't happen to have my digital camera on me at the time, so I can't show you what hey looked like, but it was pretty good.
After a while I decided to fight fire with fire and follow them. I managed to do this unnoticed for a couple of minutes, and even got a handful of people to join on behind me. My ultimate aim was to get someone who the BiWs were following to start following me at the same time, which would cause the whole line to circle around aimlessly, at which point I could swiftly escpae and watch the carnage I'd created. Suffice to say it didn't quite work, although a lot of fun was had by all in any case.
So in summary, even though it was an advertising gimmick, I was impressed by the BiWs spirit of fun, which brightened up everyone's day. Does it mean i'll watch the Discovery Channel? Probably not.
The other day I happened to be sitting in Picadilly gardens in manchester, enjoyng the afternoon sun (which happens all too rarely), when my sixth sense, which is finely tuned for picking up any faint signs of surreal or silly behaviour, started screaming at me.
I turned round to see perhaps ten or fifteen men dressed in white overalls and builders' hats, in a line, one behind the other, following a woman who seemed totally oblivious to the 'tail' she had suddenly acquired.
She eventually noticed the reaction she was causing to the general public and turned round in confusion to see what was going on. The blokes in white (hereafter known as BiWs) then did a fairly creditable impression of her being surprised, enhanced by the fat that there were fifteen of them doing it in unison.
The silly antics then continued in a similar way with the BiWs targeting many other unsuspecting people. After a while I noticed that they weren't simply builders who'd got bored and decided to do somerhing a little different for the afternoon, but were carrying little briefcases advertising Discovery Channel. I was a little disappointed by this, but the guys were clearly enjoying themselves as well as simply doing their job. It's a shame I didn't happen to have my digital camera on me at the time, so I can't show you what hey looked like, but it was pretty good.
After a while I decided to fight fire with fire and follow them. I managed to do this unnoticed for a couple of minutes, and even got a handful of people to join on behind me. My ultimate aim was to get someone who the BiWs were following to start following me at the same time, which would cause the whole line to circle around aimlessly, at which point I could swiftly escpae and watch the carnage I'd created. Suffice to say it didn't quite work, although a lot of fun was had by all in any case.
So in summary, even though it was an advertising gimmick, I was impressed by the BiWs spirit of fun, which brightened up everyone's day. Does it mean i'll watch the Discovery Channel? Probably not.
