While looking over the bulletin boards around campus recently, I noticed once again someone had gotten the bright idea to do a "Got X?" ad campaign. This prompted me to wonder whether it was just my opinionated mind or whether the old-fashionedness with which the ads seemed to come off really existed. A quick search on the Internet led me to a San Francisco Business Times article that stated the original "Got ... " campaign, the "Got Milk?" campaign was started in 1993. Considering the fact that we college students are usually pretty up to speed with the times, that makes for one heck of a long time for such an ad strategy to still be in use.
So here is my plea to some of the various student group PR people: For cripe's sakes, please think of something new. "Got ... " is now officially old and out of date. Using it is like trying to be cool at any random gathering of geeks by reciting the whole "All your base are belong to us" dialogue or trying to impress English majors with the most worn out Shakespeare quotes.
It is also analogous to arguing for gun control amongst a group of Republicans, insisting your breakfast eggs should have a certain diameter to allow for enough salt to be added or complaining that the plastic fork you got with your take out meal is not sturdy enough. You may be making a good point, but in the end you're not being very effective. In the end you would probably reach out to more people by using a few ideas from Andy Warhol's or John Cleese's work. Heck, even Simon and Garfunkel would do. "Bananas not from the underground," "This SA club is no more," "Bridges over multicultural waters" or "And now for an even sillier treasurer" may not ring a bell immediately, but once the non-disruptive traffic jam inside the reader's head had cleared you may get a whole church tower of bells ringing with pennies dropping into all sorts of containers.
So in the words of Will Ferrel's Trebeck: Better luck to all of you in the next round.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
