Open a Can of Snowclones

A new billboard advertising campaign began appearing across Michigan in the last couple of months.

For a closer look at the campaign, here is an image from an in-store ad.


Linguistically, two things strike me about this campaign.

1. Weed is a well-known slang term for marijuana so it seems obvious that the company is aiming this product at, shall we say, an edgier crowd.

and

2. The campaign tag line is remarkably reminiscent of the idiomatic expressions, "open a can of whoop ass" and "open a can of worms", especially since the forth word in the tag line and each idiomatic expression begins with a /w/.

As to number 2 - The former idiomatic expression is in all likelihood a snowclone of the latter, and whether the tag line is an intentional snowclone of either or just a coincidence, I couldn't tell you. I will say that I sure wouldn't want my product to be associated with creating a situation that causes trouble or involves taking a beating.



P.S. A snowclone is a phrase that is produced by using a clichéd phrase as a linguistic template. Open a can of (fill in the blank).

Bad Advertising - Billboard Semiotics and Pragmatics Fail

Take a close look at the bottom billboard and think about what each symbol might represent and what the sum of these symbols is intended to communicate.

Now, picture driving at 80 miles an hour and trying to figure out not only what each symbol might represent but also what the sum of these symbols is meant to communicate.

As mentioned in a previous post about a billboard pragmatics fail, the context in which a communication occurs plays an important role in a reader's ability to interpret a writer's intended meaning. The context here is the side of an expressway. Any reader in a car going 80 miles an hour or more is going to have an awfully hard time interpreting the writer's intended meaning because at that speed the reader will have a very short time to view the symbols. Not to mention that this doesn't even take into account the possibility of a semi truck obstructing a reader's view.

As for the semiotics fail, the symbols were so poorly executed that my first guess was:

beak + carrot ('s) + rake + "in" + rolling pin

Oh...how wrong I was and and oh...what bad advertising.

Upon seeing the billboard a third time I realized - the bird is a duck and the arrow is pointing to its bill, the carrot is supposed to be a surfboard and the last arrow is pointing to a blob of dough, not the rolling pin.

bill + board ('s) + rake + "in" + dough

So the writer's intended meaning was, "billboards rake in dough."

Okay, maybe I should have realized that was a duck the first time but I was driving and reprimanding kids at the same time. Plus I still think the second symbol looks like a carrot everytime I pass it.

Did I mention the apostrophe error? Does the billboard own the rake? The writer should have used a "+ s" not a "'s"

Related posts:

semiotics definition

additional semiotics posts

additional billboard posts

billboards advertising billboard advertising

Semiotic Billboard Advertising is Eye Catching

There is a billboard on southbound I-75 near Saginaw that advertises advertising on billboards (A fun topic about which I have previously posted). This particular billboard relies upon semiotics to succinctly deliver its message. The billboard is simply an image of numerous eyeballs being scooped into a net. I was unable to snap a picture of the actual billboard so this is my, admittedly, lame attempt at reproducing it.

The symbolism of the eyeball/net combination can be interpreted as either "catching eyes" or "eye-catching." I believe that either interpretation successfully delivers the message that advertising on billboards works.

McDonald's Coffee Billboard - Pragmatics Fail

This is a billboard located on I-75 in Flint, Michigan.

If you ask me this billboard and another recent billboard for McDonald's coffee place too much value on a customer’s income. This billboard is not only a put down to people in the city of Flint, it also implies that a person must have monetary wealth in order to have good taste.

At any rate, the pragmatic aspect of this billboard is what first jumped out at me. It is well known in the study of pragmatics that the context in which communication occurs plays an important role in the listener's ability to interpret the speaker's intended meaning. In this case the communication is between writer and reader. The reason I see this as a pragmatics fail is because the context of this communication is its location and I don't believe that the writer took the context into consideration. What I am referring to is the fact that this billboard is on an interstate highway that is travelled by people from many different cities and states. Unless the reader of the billboard is very familiar with the zones that zip codes cover and the income level of the people in those zones, the billboard doesn't really communicate to the reader the writer's intended semantic implication.

Billboard Plays with Morphology, Syllabification and Semantics - Ad Here

As long as we are on the topic of billboards this week, another great one I spotted recently is a billboard that advertises advertising on billboards. This is a notable billboard because it relies on morphology, syllabification, and semantics to make its point. Unfortunately, there is not an available image of this billboard and I was driving too quickly to take a picture. At any rate, I will do my best to describe it.

There is a bottle of glue in the lower left corner and there are letters that give the illusion of being cut from magazine text and glued to the billboard. The letters appear to form one word adhere; however, the letters a and d are in the same font which is a different font from the letters h, e, r, and e that are also in the same font. Does that make sense? Like this: adhere.

So you have the word adhere with the syllables ad and here, which are also the free morphemes (or words) ad and here. Semantically this delivers two messages:

1. The viewer of the billboard, as a potential advertiser, could put their ad on that billboard
and
2. If the viewer of the billboard puts their ad on that billboard, their message will adhere with future billboard viewers, in other words, the message will stick to the future billboard viewers memory (which is key in advertising).

Culver's Guilty of Using Inaccurate Homophone in Attempt at Word Play

As I was driving up north this past weekend I noticed a billboard on I-75 advertising the burger chain Culver's. The billboard has a picture of a burger and a shake with the words Two Tasty. This is an obviously attempt at word play as the use of the word two prompts the reader to also think of its homophone too. Culver's intention here is for readers of the billboard to think that, not only are each of the two items tasty, they are also very tasty (too tasty). I am not a big fan of Culver's so in my eyes this is an inaccurate homophone for the billboard. How about Knot Tasty.