bumperstickers or bumper stickers?
Location: Nashville
Highlights: it’s been a few days since i posted thus failing miserably at my post a day promise to myself… either way a good few days. late nights at work. stunning acoustic performances by angel taylor. good company. more pumpkin carving. and more travel.
Posted from: Courtyard by Marriott - Nashville Airport
Driving back to the hotel tonight after Angel played a house party for some of our friends and colleagues and then catching Leslie at the Exit/In… i followed a car with an Obama bumper sticker. I asked myself, are bumper stickers really an effective form of promotion. Would the simple fact that the person in the red corolla i was following, had an Obama bumper sticker, possibly influence my vote or anyone else’s. Would i have a moment where I was like “oh my god, that red corolla has an Obama sticker, i now see the light and will vote for him.”
After thinking about it for a second, i came back to the world of logic that i so often like to live in and realized that bumper stickers are not meant always as a impulse buy selling tool. They are a statement. Much like the car we followed earlier that had a bumper sticker that read “God is too big for one religion.” Which the statement in an of itself I supposed deserves an entire other post at some point.
But back to bumper stickers in general. It’s important to note that while i find reading them sometimes amusing, rarely thought provoking and often times simply inane, as a general rule, i hate the idea of the bumper sticker. Is there something out there that compels me enough to not only share it with ever person who happens to be following me at any given moment, but that I’m willing to deface the bumper of my car with. the answer for me is a simple no. But much to my surprise for an odd majority of drivers on this planet, it’s a passion.
As I’m considering the idea and effectiveness of the bumper sticker, I attempt to remind myself that not all bumper stickers are meant as a marketing tool. Most bumper stickers are a method of self expression. Some fall into both plans as in the Obama sticker. That person is not only telling me they are an Obama support and proud of it, but also putting another Obama impression in my head and thus increasing the likely hood that I will at least spend a moment of my life or at least one of the billions of thoughts we have in our life span, thinking about Barack Omama and with that i answer my own question to some level of satisfaction. A bumper sticker in not an infomercial. It’s not meant to server as a method of impulse buying. It’s just another piece of the marketing pie. Whether that is marketing a product or someone’s own self image. And at the end of the day, I prefer the bumper stickers trying to sell me something over the bumper stickers that attempt at wit or to share a feeling or belief of the driver that just cut me off and at the same time is telling me via a piece of sticky PVC to “Have a Nice Day.”
Two interesting visits: Bumper Sticker Entry on Wiki
Google Image Search on Bumper Stickers first image:
