Your RDA of Irony

Picture This

Although as a free-lance writer, I have only a tenuous acquaintance with money but I do know what it looks like.  And I don’t like what I see!  Our dollars are a waste of space!  What are George Washington, Abe Lincoln and the rest of those celebrity corpses doing?  Nothing.  We should put them to work promoting various products.

 

The dollar is a perfect place for product placement because it is unavoidable.    People can flee the room during a TV commercial, they can skim past magazine ads, but they’re not going to stop using money.  And every time they handle a dollar bill, they would be getting a dose of the sponsor’s message.

Picture this!  We know that George Washington would have loved Poli-Grip, so why not show him on the dollar bill conferring his new-found smile on his favorite denture adhesive.  And a number of food companies would pay millions to take credit for rotting his teeth.  As long as he has two hands, he could be shown holding Poli-Grip and a Coke. 

Imagine what Honest Abe could shill on the five dollar bill!  There are a number of products that we easily could associate with him:  Prozac, Aunt Jemima and life insurance.  Ulysses Grant also has a certain product credibility.  Think of him cradling a bottle of Johnny Walker on the $50 bill. 

But the $10 bill is a real marketing opportunity.  Do people actually know what Alexander Hamilton looked like?  We could rent his niche to Ronald McDonald, Shrek, the Tidy-Bowl Man, or anyone else who is willing to pay for six months’ advertising.

Furthermore, our commercial opportunities are not limited to product placement on money.  Think of Mount Rushmore.  How much would Grecian Formula pay to color Abe’s beard? 

  1. Richard Greb says:

    And wouldn’t that do wonders for coin collectors? All that money taken out of circulation as collectors struggle to make sure they have at least one of every variation.

  2. Alan Perlman says:

    How about Ben Franklin shilling for LensCrafters? The possibilities are endless!

  1. There are no trackbacks for this post yet.

Leave a Reply