THURSDAY ARCH SERIES

Haven’t run this feature in a long time, but it’s hard to find something new to see in a 190 meter steel wicket after 30 years of photographing it. The huge billboard tower stands beside the major highway bridge over the Mississippi. Looks like ad biz isn’t so good.                

LAWYER ADVERTISING

Is there any country besides the United States in which lawyers advertise so much, if at all? It's been some time since I've been in the UK but I think I've seen a bit there. It is everywhere in this country, a result of a Supreme Court decision some decades ago that it was protected by the free speech provision of our constitution. 

Now it's everywhere. My little firm does some. We have to. We represent ordinary people; we are a consumer service in a very specialized area. If you are curious you can click the link to the firm website in the sidebar of my blog.               

Commercial District

One of the discouraging things about professional sports (worldwide, I assume) is the intense commercialization. Fans cannot escape marketing at every turn. It is annoying, distracting from the game. Some is just a logo, some is simply absurd. It's hard to see with low contrast, but the middle of the Coca Cola ad has the slogan "taste the feeling." Are they slipping LSD into the beverage?

        

Messages

Sports stadiums around the world are awash in advertising. It's annoying but unavoidable. This photo was taken during the playing of the national anthem. Looks like commerce is soundly defeating patriotism. At least Fredbird, the Cardinals idiot mascot, stands alone at attention.

The flag in the corner of the top picture is that of the City of St. Louis.                       

Lawyer Advertising

Americans all see plenty of lawyer advertising. It's a bit of an oversimplification but years ago the Supreme Court ruled it is a matter of free speech, as long as it is not deceptive. This often shocks people I meet from other countries. My little firm advertises. We have to. Our field is competitive.

Some of it is creative and some of it is coarse. This is an example of both from a local colleague who handles personal injury cases. Love all those dollar signs.

                            

Forget The Milk And Cookies

But Santa, Little Billy cried, won't bacon grease get on your nice white gloves?

Ho ho ho, Little Billy, don't worry, the jolly old elf replied. They're latex. You wouldn't believe the slop I see in some of these houses. Anyway, milk and cookies are full of cholesterol and sugar. Here, have some fried pork fat with a bit of meat yourself. Ho ho ho!

What will the marketeers think of next? Does this billboard make you any more likely to buy bacon? (Vegetarians are not allowed to vote.)

I know advertising is part of a market economy. My firm advertises. But all of it is hogwash (except, of course, my own).
                           

Dada Lives

You've probably heard of Dada, the absurdist art, or more properly anti-art, movement that flourished after World War I into the 1920s. They wrote bizarre texts, meaningless but fascinating, to challenge the sensibilities of the bourgeoisie. 

The spirit of Dada lives in contemporary restaurant advertising. I wonder what George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams would have thought of this sign (after you explained guacamole to them, of course).

Note the bit of  X ≠ X in the last line. At Qdoba, the water isn't wet, the prices on the menu are whatever you want them to be and the jalapeños are sweeter than honey.

Clubhouse

The door of an abandoned building a couple of blocks from my office. We are typical of mid-size, Midwestern towns: city centers much removed from their glory years; some historic buildings beautifully restored, some empty and derelict. This small building on Broadway falls in the latter category.

Lots of private clubs have sunk under the financial waves in this country. The local bar association used to have a very nice lawyers club, now long gone for lack of patronage. The advertising club may have left the downtown scene but, heaven help us, the ads live on in ever more intrusive and annoying ways. I blacklist and unsubscribe from the tsunami of marketing email but it's a futile effort. We are outraged that our cable TV provider, ATT U-Verse, now has a huge number of 24/7 advertising channels that we pay for. We are seriously thinking of going back to rabbit ears and over-the-air broadcasts. Three-quarters of the postal mail we get is advertising and goes straight in the trash without being opened.

What a waste. The marketing industry has worn out its welcome. We don't pay attention to a bit of it.                                       

MeTube

So here's why I was in New Orleans last week:

Crass commercialism. Our little boutique law firm advertises on TV. We have to. We represent individual people one at a time, not businesses or government agencies. People need us once and almost never again. When I started doing this it was a genteel little backwater of American legal practice. Now there is cut-throat competition. So we're on TV, something quite common in the US these days.

The agency I use is in New Orleans. They couldn't be more specialized - just law firms in our type of practice, one client per TV market. We only make new ads about every four years. It's quite expensive. The guy I use usually does backgrounds of plain white, plain black or fake office. We pushed him this time into doing green screen. One of my simple pix of the Arch will be in the background. I'll be on the left.

One of the production team took these pictures with my camera during the shoot. I guarantee you this is not my natural skin tone (wee bit of make-up) but studio lights do a great job with color. And yes, we are on YouTube. Here's me with my partner of 28 years, Julie Shanahan, in a video from our web site.

Out on the streets of New Orleans tomorrow.         

Liberty or License

Perhaps this picture is a counterpoint to my posts of Tuesday and Wednesday from the Pridefest parade. This self-explanatory billboard is being towed around downtown before a baseball game.

"What's that, daddy?" What the hell are you supposed to say to your kid? It's the outdoor equivalent of Viagra ads on TV during, oh, say, a baseball game. We don't need this. It's quite legal in the US but it raises a very old question: you are permitted to do it, but should you do it? Or, to put it another way, what price money? Perhaps I am being naive. If something is allowed, someone will sell it.

Note that the sign invites fans to head east after the game. To us, that means crossing the Mississippi. We don't allow such things in Missouri, In Illinois, anything goes. Look at Chicago politics. The caricature of Illinois politicians is that they are crafty grifters. The broad image of Missouri politicians is that they are backward buttheads. Both of these generalizations may sometimes be true.

How much of this stuff goes on in your society?

Tomorrow: What on earth is a sailor doing here?