Yesterday I got on the Metro, saw this ad, and stared at it, utterly puzzled:
Washington? What? Is it the city government? Washington Mutual? Former mayor Walter Washington? Isn’t he dead?
I finally got it: They meant, you know, Washington. Those bad guys in government. Hey, folks. Guess what. When you actually live in Washington, “Washington” doesn’t mean that. Which you’d think they would know, since, of course, all the organizations listed across the bottom are in Washington. (Ok, one of them is in Arlington.)
I went to stopthedebitcardrule.com and am still kind of perplexed – it has something to do with fees charged to merchants when you use debit cards? Maybe? And I have no idea what action they wish me to take. I’m beginning to wonder if abusing the term “Washington” in their metro ads is maybe just the start of their communication problems.
It’s actually an ad campaign that intentionally confusing — in the hope that it’ll be picked up by bloggers & go viral. … Pardon me for a moment while I go tweet this post.
And share it on Facebook.
And post it to my Tumblr….
Ooh, Alan, I like how you think.
Sadly there is a serious issue being obscured by a poorly designed and written ad. The fees in question could put sharp limits on the size of debit card transactions and even add large fees for their use. Too bad this group can’t seem to get this message across clearly.
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