Well, this is brilliant: potholes that tweet to officials about their state of disrepair each time someone drives over them. In my day, if we wanted to complain, we had to wade 15 miles down the Panama Canal, stopping every hundred meters to verify our identities with some generalissimo-looking TSA-like agents. Only after contracting Dengue Fever and besting the ghost of Teddy Roosevelt in fisticuffs were we even granted an audience with the complaint filing clerk at the City of Panama City Council of Panama City, Panama. Red tape and bureaucratic incompetence (Panama’s 3rd and 7th largest exports, respectively) ensured a swift resolution to wholly none of our pothole problems. If only, we’d plea, that a network of highly-intelligent sensors embedded in the pavement would directly signal those infrastructure-neglecting gordo gatos and display their shame in a public forum so that discontent would warm to a boil, and for once, Arturo’s delivery van/Buick Regal would know a gentle ride.
It would appear that Arturo and my prayers were answered. Thank you, P4 Ogilvy & Mather of Panama City.
This solution, and make no mistake, getting local government to stop dragging their feet on road maintenance is a minor miracle, is a resounding win for the Good Guys of Advertising. No shock porn depicting a tire bursting and swerving into traffic. No damage charts and insurance premiums. Just annoying, constantly-poking, always THERE tweets.
Also, is this scenario not distinctly New Jersey in nature? Potholes, the Official State Divot of NJ, are more numerous and only slightly less harmful than Canadian Geese. Way to be awesomely annoying, advertisers, we’ll need your like after the next lazily-named incarnation of Snowmageddon.
~ Chase Cambria, Jr. Copywriter, The S3 Agency
