Monday, September 15, 2008

The US Forest Service wants us to try tabacco?


I was driving home from work the other day, minding my own business, when in my periphery I noticed a billboard. I ignore probably 95% of billboards, but happened to be stopped at a light in proximity to this one (in the middle of the city at least an hour from a forest/woodland area).

On the bottom right of the white billboard was the left half of the iconic forest fire prevention mascot Smoky Bear. The only other distinguishable thing on the board was a phrase in big bold letters that said: "GET YOUR SMOKEY ON!" Apparently this is the new slogan for the US Forest Service. Now, Smoky has been out of the public spotlight for years, (he kind of went the way of McGruff the crime dog) I honestly can't remember a Smokey PSA since before I was in high school (a decade ago). My point being: no one who knows who Smoky Bear is really says "get your anything on" and any one young enough to use that phrase without seeming like a dofus doesn't know who Smokey is. So who is this PSA geared towards? The most troubling thing to me is that before this sign made it up, there were probably countless hours spent in meetings coming up with "the perfect" slogan. And this is what they came up with???

I'm glad my tax dollars are hard at work.

source: http://www.smokeybear.com/

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