Election posters, billboards and other ways to make a point
On messaging and manipulation. A story in seven parts.
1. The Tim Ferriss question
Tim Ferriss, the writer and podcaster and tsar of self-experimentation, has a question he asks many of the guests on his billion-times-downloaded podcast:
“If you had a billboard the entire world could see for a day, what would you put on it?”
And here’s the thing about this question.
In the specific sense, it says something fundamental about me — fascinated, as I seem to be, throughout a scattered career as a magazine staffer and digital publisher and copywriter and podcaster and poet and Substack writer — about communication in all its forms.
But in a much more general, even universal, sense, it says something essential about the way the human brain responds more to simple repetition than deep wisdom. This question, heard a hundred times in podcast after podcast, has lodged itself in my brain, but I have zero recollection of any of the answers Ferriss’s many interesting guests have given.
2. The local businesswoman
A few years ago, as I was feeling my way into freelance work, I engaged in a project with a small but very successful local businesswoman who seemed to be turning over vast amounts of money as a beautician specializing in innovative treatments that women from far and wide just had to have.
Another of this lady’s business interests — because she was a businesswoman much more than she was a beautician — was billboard advertising.
Every few miles, strategically placed in the corners of fields along the commuter arteries that carry tens of thousands of people to and from the economy’s beating heart, you might see another of the billboards in which she had an interest, sending out a message about the local theme park or wedding venue or the fast food place just two minutes away, take the next right.
So it settled in with me right then.
This is one of the smartest business people I know.
They do nothing if it’s not seriously profitable.
They are investing in old-school billboards in fields.
3. Lessons from Ireland’s local elections
A nationwide local election takes place in Ireland today (June 7th), with almost 1000 councillors to be elected to local government councils this weekend.
Irish local elections are, I expect, fairly standard affairs in the world of communication. Nothing much that’s truly innovative takes place when Irish councillors are trying to win or retain their seat in a local chamber which doesn’t have a whole lot of power to do anything in the first place.
Even so, no doubt over these past two months or so I’ve been targeted and warmed up for the ballot box in several different ways. Here are five that stand out:
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