New Extremes in Billboard Hate

Long-standing readers will perhaps remember my previous tirades against the loathsomeness of what I call Happy-Person Advertising, and of the odious billboards of one City of Roses credit union in particular. But you know what? Several of the subsequent billboards in their series weren't quite so bad. They were still basically Happy-Person Advertising, but with some sort of gesture toward financial services. I remember that there was one of a punkish young woman holding a piggy bank. There was one, I believe, of a woman who appeared to be holding some money. So, they weren't just randomly ecstatic. That, for me, kicked the ads a couple notches up toward mediocrity.

Which is why I was so disappointed to see this billboard this weekend on beautiful SE Powell Boulevard.



Yes, that's right. The folks at the Rivermark Credit Union -- for let us now name names -- have gone from merely insultingly stupid advertising to out-and-out child exploitation! Do you think their cute lil' spokesmodel there is old enough to have a well-developed perspective on the relative merit of consumer checking accounts? Is he even, technically, legally eligible to have his own checking account? Call me crazy, but I don't put much stock in his endorsement.

Now obviously, this child had no idea when he was being photographed that he was giving the thumbs-up to a modest rate of return on funds held in a checking account. In all likelihood the Rivermark people bought some stock photos from a vendor, and it would not surprise me if the same boy can be seen giving the same thumbs-up to a chain of for-profit hospitals in the Florida panhandle, or whatever. But this is exactly what makes the ad both insulting and creepy: they believe that they can show me a random picture of a cute child, free of all context, and I will thereby instinctively be moved to do their bidding. To the extent that this works -- no doubt their advertising firm has all sorts of impressive numbers for them -- it is sinister indeed.

Incidentally, let's think about 3% checking. Let's say you are prosperous enough that you keep around $2000 dollars in your checking account -- I'll assume that if you are strapped, you have a lower average, and if you are well-off, you've got better places for your dosh than your checking account. A 3% yield over the course of a year would land you $60, or $5.00 a month. That's not bad -- you could buy a pack of cigs every month, or take someone out to eat once or twice a year. But it's hardly an amount of money to get excited about.... unless you're a child! If you offered to give a child the $5/month return on your checking account, he'd probably be stoked! He'd probably give you a big thumbs-up! So maybe that's what this is all about.

UPDATE: Update: I am only just now noticing that there appears to be about a paragraph of text set just underneath the lad's outstretched fist. It doesn't exactly call attention to itself, does it. One wonders what sort of legally-required protective language is up there -- "3% annual reward must be claimed in person at home office in Khartoum, Sudan"? -- and how many drivers are able to parse it as they zip by the sign at 40 miles per hour.