Nobody asked me, but … (#25)
It was 107 degrees outside yesterday evening. That’s what I was told by the electronic time and temperature sign in front of a local real estate office. Seems like it would be hard enough to sell houses these days without telling people that they are in an oven, but this particular sign seems to always read several degrees higher than reality. Maybe the wiring is overheating, or the surface is absorbing the heat. But that wouldn’t explain why their clock function is an hour ahead, would it? “Buy or sell your house with us, because we don’t know what time it is or how hot it is!” Or maybe what they’re saying is, “We’ll exaggerate anything to have your business.” I wonder.
I also wonder about the credit union a few miles from here. While the real estate office sign is at least within a dozen degrees of accuracy, this credit union, for at least a year, consistently advertised the current temperature as 428 degrees. Now, it is the Police and Fire Fighters Credit Union (I kid you not), so maybe the high temperature would attract those emergency service workers. Or maybe, for some unknown reason, they’re using the Kelvin scale. Let’s see – 428 Kelvin equals … 310 Fahrenheit. Ah, a nice cool breeze.
I’m not an advertising expert, but it seems to me that the reason for putting up a time/temperature sign is to have passing eyes see the sign, recognize it as a worthwhile source of information, and associate it positively with the business whose name and logo are adjacent. And maybe the credit union accomplished part of that by insisting that global warming is a reality – after all, their name is, to coin a phrase, seared into my memory. But the association I have with them, and with the real estate broker as well, is that they are either too oblivious to recognize that they are sending out false information, or they don’t care about the validity of what they are displaying. After all, if you’re going to spend the money on one of those signs, wouldn’t you want them to be reliable?
I do take notice of roadside signs, and not just those that try to mislead me about time and temperature. In some places, there can be too much to absorb – true visual overload. Not surprisingly, Orlando is one of those places, with theme park signs and auto dealer advertising everywhere. And driving from here to Atlanta, it becomes obvious when you cross into Georgia, as that state clearly places no limits on billboards, either for quantity or for quality (let alone spelling).
I’m also amused by the local furniture store that regularly uses space on their sign to inform passing motorists that they are “Closed Monday”. Wouldn’t it be smarter to tell people when your business is open, rather than closed? Perhaps some wise advertising guru could explain that one.
One more thought about the signs we see on the road every day. I can think of only one business that prominently posts its prices every day, even when the reaction of those who see those prices is far from positive. That’s the gasoline business, and it might be frustrating to people in that business to realize that theirs is the only retail industry that does so. Many other retailers display sale prices, of course, on whatever special or feature they have at that time, but the price per gallon is the most visible component of every filling station’s signage, every hour, every day, every year. They can try to convince us through TV advertising that their brand of gasoline is better, but it seems that most people fill up where the price is lowest, even by only a few cents. Perhaps we’ve reached the threshhold where an oil company will stop displaying their prices. After all, it has to be getting expensive to have someone change those prices every day (or every hour). So instead, maybe they should put up a sign that says, “We have gas. You might be able to afford it. Come in and take your chances. And, by the way, it’s 127 degrees outside. Have a nice day.”
Leave a Reply