Street pole postering is a medium somewhat lacking in innovative communication. So it was especially enjoyable when I saw this poster at a busy downtown intersection in Toronto a little while back:
While this poster received some web notoriety at the time, I haven’t seen much commentary on what makes it funny.
Our typical cultural approach to job hunting is to delicately and aloofly make it all about our potential employer’s needs, and how we are going to fulfill them with our skills, experience and magical personality. This poster simply wouldn’t have been awesome if it read: “Hardworking creative handyman and engineer available for odd jobs or full-time work, immediately.” The poster instead managed to artfully get across an aggressive stance of: “I NEED A JOB, MAN! I’M CLEVER, BUT I’LL DO ANYTHING, CALL ME!” I think it works because it takes the subtext of job hunting, which is so inherently about ME (I want a job, I need a job), and cheekily throws it in your face.
The Hannes poster kind of reminds me of an advertising case study from the book The Perfect Pitch, by strategic planning director Jon Steele, that illustrates how capturing the attention of and impacting your target’s decision making process can be a little more subtle than it sometimes seems.
In the Perfect Pitch case study, Steele first draws his reader’s attention to the sheer sameness of prostitute advertisements you might see in a phone booth (or the back of a free newspaper). These ads typically try to describe the hottest thing a guy can think of, e.g. “Petite Blonde with DD Breasts available for your wildest fantasies,” and include a porn-style picture of a woman.
So, he asks, how can a girl stand out in this sea of double D’s? First, you need to realize that most men who have used these services realize that the photo used in marketing is likely NOT the girl who they will ultimately get connected with. So while men ARE looking for the hottest woman they can find, they are not looking for it in the way you might think.
Effective advertising requires you to be inside a person’s world enough to understand their decision making process. Steels provided a case in point, that something like, “Hanna. 23. Genuine picture. Overnights available,” is a much more effective ad, given the advertising playing field for that category and what the consumer goes into it thinking.
Hannes’ ad worked on me – I actually hired Hannes for a small job (a sort of temporary courier type thing). My decision to use him was clinched by the fact that all I had to do was call him, and my effort required to secure someone who didn’t seem like a total screw-up for this odd job would be complete. (He was great btw.) I only wish I could find a hilarious advertisement perfectly addressing my needs every time I’m thinking about using Craigslist for something.
-Alice