How many copywriters does it take to screw up a metaphor?
These posters went up all over MUNI recently. Here's how they fail:
The poster features an incandescent lightbuld and a compact flourescent lightbulb. Let's call them 'old' and 'new' for short. The old lighbulb is labeled 'SUV', the new one is labeled 'hybrid'.
The problem is that the new lightbulb is an evolution of the old one, and the old one in its time was a very good idea. Before lightbulbs we burned whale fat to light our homes at night, we went to bed earlier and we read less books for lack of light. Lightbulbs effectively made us smarter. The SUV was NEVER a good idea, they're an abomination of fuel consumption and encourage lazy driving habits. The hybrid is an evolution of the car, not the SUV.
So I'd accept 'car' over the old lighbulb.
You had two words to get right on this ad and you blew half of them. Good work.
Written by Mike Monteiro on July 25, 2006 | 
6 comments so far. Add yours below.
judith says:
even small children can grasp the difference between
"good vs better" and "bad vs good". silly ad people.
July 25, 2006 8:14 PM
tim says:
yeah, but in this day and age, if you have regular old light bulbs you're doing the lighting equivalent of driving an suv... aka stuck in the dark ages (...erm...yeah...) i think that's the point they're going for.
July 28, 2006 9:51 AM
Roy Jacobsen says:
Not to make this an argument over SUVs, but there are times when an SUV is a good thing. (Trying to get to an emergency room through a North Dakota blizzard is one case where I don't think a Prius will cut it.)
That being said, I'd hazard a guess that about 95% of the SUVs on the road are totally unnecessary indulgences on the part of their owners.
July 28, 2006 4:09 PM
Joe says:
Even though I don't have an SUV, I love them. They are useful, multi purpose and comfortable. Althought the Prius serves its purpose, the SUV serves many more.
Don't assume everyone with an SUV is endulging, maybe they just find that their old traditional cars just weren't a good value.
FYI... try pulling around your boat with a Prius, or any other hybrid. Until we are there, I won't be giving up on the SUV, Pickup Truck, or any other large consumer vehicle.
July 30, 2006 9:31 AM
Richard Querin says:
Is it me or did no one mention the fact that the ad is about energy efficiency? I think the ad works. The incandescent bulb is inefficient energy-wise as is the SUV (in terms of fuel mileage anyway). And vice versa for the compact fluorescent/hybrid. Seems to me that most people would get this immediately. I didn't think old/new, I thought wasteful/efficient. But maybe I'm in the minority.
July 30, 2006 6:01 PM
rebeka hed says:
your argument doesn't make any sense. I think people get the gist of this ad because they're not over analyzing like you. Maybe you should get a life and stop being so critical of everything around you.
August 11, 2006 1:18 PM