Return of the Sandwich Board

Wobble-boarder as seen in the Shropshire Star

Sandwich Board ads are a thing of the past. How wrong can you be! A few days ago(29 May blog) I mentioned the demise of living billboards and then along came national public furor about sandwich board ads by Domino's Pizzas.  Apparently the use of living advertisements has been provoking a lot of outrage.  Local newspapers across the country have been running the story because so many people consider the ads demeaning to the person carry the boards. Domino's have defended the campaign as humorous and say their 'wobble-boarders' are staff volunteers. Whatever the facts of the case, the debate made it to the national media last week.

I'm not clear whether sandwich boards are demeaning or not, but I have looked up Domino's yearly sales and they were up a full 20% on the previous year. Domino's is bucking the economic trends. When it comes to home-delivered pizza people are still spending. I'm sure that success isn't all down to wobble-boards. Nevertheless the fact that their advertisements are so much talked about certainly hasn't done them any harm.

Collective memory mechanism:

Talking the memory keeps the memory fresh.