Saturday, February 06, 2010

.

Does this really work for anybody?

Droid billboardThere aren’t many billboards around where I live, and I do my best to avoid advertisements. A result of that is that I’m often among the last to know about a particular advertising campaign. I’ve only recently seen the current abomination advertisement for the Droid, pictured on the right. In case you’re one of the six other people who hasn’t seen it, it says

a bare-knuckled
bucket of does.

So, as this post’s title says, does this really work for anybody? I absolutely can’t make myself turn the third-person singular of the verb “to do” into a noun that fits at the end of that sentence fragment. I know what they mean, but I just keep reading it as a group of female deer, which kind of blunts their message.

And the image that I am about to be mugged by the ladies who hang out on my front lawn... well, it just does not prompt me to go out and buy what they’re advertising.

I can cope with the slogan in the corner: “In a world of doesn’t, Droid does.” But overall, I find this to be one of the worst ads I’ve seen in a long time. It just... well, it “doesn’t.”

Is it really working? Or should they fire their ad company?


[Image courtesy of Chris Devers.]

8 comments:

Thomas J. Brown said...

The whole "Droid Does" campaign hasn't worked for me, especially when they name all sorts of things the Droid does that the iPhone does too. Great job there, guys.

Michelle said...

*looks at it, thinks about it, parses it, examines one feelings towards it, reads it again, ponders*

no.. not working on me.

Ray said...

I hadn't seen this until I read your blog entry (which, I'm happy to observe, places me in an exceedingly elite minority), and I parsed it the way you did, arriving at the same conclusion: it is meaningless.

Should they fire their advertising company? Certainly they should, if they're targeting us. But then again, I'm pretty sure they are not.

Barry Leiba said...

Indeed, Ray, they never are.

Unknown said...

I think the ad company should be fired. This misuse of English annoys me.

Adam said...

Wonderful...I came upon your blog via Martha Brockenbrough's.

I read it a BUNCH of times, myself, trying to make myself say "does" as "duz" and subliminally trying to fix it. Doing this, I only came up with "...bucket of do," which while still incorrect, phonetically came out as "bucket of doo," emphasizing why, at least, they hadn't taken THAT route.

Barry Leiba said...

«I came upon your blog via Martha Brockenbrough's.»

For reference, that's The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar.

The Ridger, FCD said...

It doesn't work well in written form, at least not without more context, but it would work if I heard it on the radio. Very playful; I like it.