Hot on the heels of simplyaudiobooks.ca’s billboard featuring a picture of George W. Bush beside the headline Don’t Read Enough?…
Photo by Hamish Grant.
…comes another ad disparaging the Shrub’s cognitive capabilities — Yale Shmale:
Playing on Bush’s perceived mental midgetry — for which there is ample evidence — is like shooting fish in a barrel as far as the university-bound crowd goes.
“Graduating from an Ivy League university doesn’t necessarily mean you’re smart,” reads the copy on the site whose message is that going to a prestigious university is no guarantee that you’re going to come out as a brilliant person. And on that part, they’re right: despite having gone to the character-building Yale for his undergrad, he somehow ended up becoming a boozehound and cokehead. As for his much-vaunted degree from Harvard Business School, there’s the matter of investors in his businesses losing 55 cents for every dollar they invested in him; in fact, his businesses were so lossy that they made pretty good tax shelters. Bush’s major business success — the Arlington Ballpark, home of the Texas Rangers — was largely tax-subsidized.
What diminishes the Yale Shmale site’s impact is the set of promotions at the bottom of the page. One is a contest for a Smart Car, the other is for a PlayStation Portable. It makes the place appear second- or third-rate, and given how much smaller the differential in tuitions between the least and most prestigious schools in Canada is, it seems cheap. A promo like this is suitable for a jeans store, not a university. I’m reminded of the college that Mallory, the dumb sister from the 1980s sitcom Family Ties went to; if you enrolled, you were entitled to a “nice thick juicy steak cooked just the way you like it.”
Come November 2008, Bush could make a decent living as a self-deprecating product pitchman. At least it’s an honest living.
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The audio books ad is baffling. Every customer who responds positively to this ad is accepting the shallow premise that because they don't read enough books, they are as dopey as Bush.
The ad also implies that Bush is so stupid that he can only absorb audio books. But the customer won't get any books to read...the product being sold here is audio books, ergo, the customers by default are identifying with Bush.
That's why the ad might be the most subversive plot hatched by Karl Rove to date.
Lakehead also being the university which won't allow wi-fi access on campus because the university president doesn't think there's enough compelling evidence to suggest the wireless signal doesn't cause health issues.
http://argus.lakeheadu.ca/index.php?section=1&article=432
Bush is an idiot. That he got into both Yale & Harvard Business is yet another chapter of being from the right family with the right amount of cashola. Obviously SAT & GMAT scores don't count when you're the grandson of Prescott Bush & an heir to his fortune.
But Last Chance U shouldn't be so snotty themselves. There's a reason why smart people don't want to study there. That they're a step up from Centennial, Humber or Seneca College (for your Torontonians) is only a matter of geography - the government needed to put a university up in Thunder Bay. Otherwise, it's just another community college.
FWIW, Mallory attended Grant College.
Does anyone else see the irony in addressing text based ads to non-readers?
@Knuckles: Your comments reflect my exact thoughts when I saw the ad... if the customer isn't reading enough they should admit themselves to the nearest library or McNally - earphones aren't the answer.
But, methinks the ad is just meant to cause discussion and give a laugh, and we're just looking into it a little too deep. Afterall, it's a hiway billboard sign. It's entire reason for being is to momentarily distract and be quickly understood by passing motorists, who's attention should normally be more foccused on the road ahead.
Anyways, I can't say I've ever given any thought or discussion to simplyaudiobooks before, so if it's only meant to familiarize a few more individuals with their name/service I'd say the ad is effective... even if it's bit silly.