What’s with all the People Holding Signs on the Street Corner?

Is it just me, or does it seem like every retail establishment these days feel its necessary to send one of their low-level employees to dance around like an intoxicated hobo on the street corner holding a sign? What the hell is the going on with this, and when did awkwardly dancing and flailing your arms about become an acceptable advertising strategy? This seems like a practice that should cease immediately.

By my estimations, this nonsense started a few years ago, and it was stupid then, but at least it made a little sense. Pizza companies were the first ones to do it; they would have their $5 pepperoni pizza deal, some poor schlub would be sent out to the street to hold a sign and dance like a maniac. Was it stupid? Of course. But it also worked. I will be the first one to admit that while I never decided on a whim to go grab a $5 pizza on the way home, it most certainly made me aware that these cheap pizzas were available, and where I could find them. I’m sure many other people did, in fact, go and get a pizza because of this type of advertising.

Then for some reason, the sign-holding thing began to branch into other food establishments. Shortly after one pizza company started this shit, every pizza joint was doing this, along with a couple burger joints, a taco stand, and the furniture store that holds one of those going-out-of-business sales every other week. At this point, it was starting to wear on my nerves.

So imagine my dismay when yesterday, as I’m driving down the street, I see a guy dressed up like the statue of liberty waving at people as they drive by. His costume consisted of what appeared to be a bedsheet haphazardly painted that greenish-blue color of oxidized copper, and a shoddy foam hat that had some of the little spike things missing. He was not holding a sign or anything else that would identify what store we should be patronizing. In fact, he was standing in front of an auto-parts store, and, if I didn’t already know the company he was representing (more on that in a minute), I would have thought he was some crazy guy wearing a costume and waving at cars just for the hell of it, which is what many other motorists undoubtedly assumed. However, I’m almost certain that he is employed by Liberty Tax Service (their office is located about 200 yards from where the guy was standing). Yes, that’s right, now this brilliant arm-flailing, costume-wearing marketing strategy has been picked up by a company that specializes in filing people’s taxes.

This whole thing is somewhat perplexing to me for several reasons. First, if this company is so desperate for business that are willing to engage in such half-assed advertising tomfoolery, why wouldn’t they give the guy a sign? After all, logic would dictate that an advertisement that doesn’t bother inform the target market with at least the name of the business is a pretty piss-poor advertisement. Secondly, why did they put the guy at an intersection a couple hundred yards from the business, especially since the road this place is on is really, really busy. Lastly, is just copying what some other company is doing a good way to communicate to potential customers that their company is different from (or superior to) the competition? Hardly.

I only reason I can possibly imagine for this idiocy is to simply get the company’s name out there, to raise (ugh, I hate this word) “awareness” of their business and the service they provide. While the idea that “any publicity is good publicity” works for celebrities and shit on the internet, I don’t think a group of wannabe-accountants trying to pass themselves off as professional tax-preparers are well-served by this idea. Because if I was in the market for someone to do my taxes, the last place I would ever go is Liberty Tax Service, because based on their advertising, the people who run the place are complete and utter morons. Besides, the only way this stuff would ever work is on impulse purchases, like , you know, $5 pizzas you can grab on the way home from work. Can you imagine any reputable law firm doing this? Or an engineering company? Or some software developers? Of course not, because it would be retarded.

Now I’m certainly not an expert on advertising, but there must be more cost-effective methods of advertising out there. It seems like newspaper ads, local television, mailers, something, anything, would be infinitely less retarded than paying some miscreant $7.50 an hour to wear a half-assed costume and stand on the side of the road, far away from the building’s entrance, and wave at people for seemingly no reason. I can’t believe this company hasn’t folded under the weight of their own idiocy.

This has been Andy sayin’, “Breaks are for guys on disability!”

Original here