I was going to wait to post this till the start of a mobile posting campaign that Microsoft is very kindly launching, but I just can’t let it wait (for those who might care, Microsoft is going to underwrite a bunch of FM authors, including me, posting mobile stuff like photos and maps and voice posts). Anyway, I was in JFK airport and I saw an arresting image in a Pitney Bowes ad.
Now, what does Pitney Bowes do? Well, turns out I have some knowledge in this area, as my father, ever the itinerant entrepreneur, tried to compete with Pitney in the 80s by creating a better postage meter. He didn’t get very far. Pitney is the Microsoft of postage meter companies. They own the market.
So they are doing a corporate campaign, apparently, and somehow, they came to the conclusion that slapping postage on a newborn baby – wait, let me say it – a not very pretty newborn baby – is somehow a powerful statement of corporate purpose. (That bracelet is actually a postage label).
Now, am I off here, or does this simply offend at too many levels to really go into? Do they really want to be seen as “putting a stamp” on newborn babies? Are they out of their minds? Anyway, a funny ad, a funny photo, taken as I was, perhaps, a bit funny myself, given I was two beers in waiting for my delayed flight…