Yes, that’s right kids: “Ignatio J. Peters’ ” dream of a transient-oriented advertising campaign has been realized. A 22-year old former Husky is now employing Seattle-area bums as walking advertisements. Devout readers of the Commentator will recall that the February 26, 2002 issue of the OC contained a commentary suggesting that transients would make good advertising devices:

Instead of sandwich boards, outfit the homeless with sweatshirts,
jackets, t-shirts, dresses, muumuus – any form of clothing,
really – emblazoned with advertising slogans and corporate logos
(“slogos,” if you will). Sandwich boards may be cheaper and
more direct, but the whole idea here is to benefit the homeless,
not the corporations. Realistically speaking, clothing is more
practical than plywood, and typically warmer on those chilly
nights out on the town (which, if you’re homeless, is every
night).

The corporations will pay for everything, from production to
distribution and, in return, they will have their “slogos” prominently
displayed wherever particular people congregate (of
course, in this case, “particular” means “homeless,” and “congregate”
means “lurk”).

Ben Rogovy, the entrepreneur behind the Seattle scheme, unfortunately hasn’t implemented step two of the plan yet:

Now that the homeless are clothed, how can we make sure
that they don’t just hide under their refrigerator boxes and
garbage bags? After all, what good is a billboard if it’s passed
out behind the Methodist church? In order to keep the transients
on their feet, we need to give them a reason to wander the city.
My plan is to establish checkpoints at various locations throughout
the city, stocked with beer and manned by corporate reps
with clipboards. The homeless would wander (stagger? meander?)
throughout the city like mice in a maze, moving from
checkpoint to checkpoint, drinking Pabst out of Dixie cups at
every stop. The homeless can’t just camp out at one or two
checkpoints, though. They have to keep moving. There
will be incentives (more beer, for example) for those industrious
vagabonds who manage to make it to all the checkpoints
in a given city, or for those who make the rounds in
the fastest time.

Hat-tip: former OC Managing Editor and contribution Brandon Oberlin

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 13th, 2005 at 17:15 by Ian and is filed under Northwest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.