I have come to forcast the downfall of what was the "big thing" in advertising a few years ago: Yellow Signs (or any version of them!)
A few years ago the idea of yellow signs (and their flourescent counterparts) surged around the area as a great way to advertise your business, attract attention, and make people read a bright sign in hopes of making them crash their moving cars. Ok so i may have made that last one up. But needless to say, peeople loved this bright way of diverting attention from on-coming cars and other businesses.
I am stating now that this form of advertising has reached and passed its peak. In a country where we are trying to clean up our cities and make them more green, natural is the new yellow. I was reminded of this just the other day when driving downtown I saw three yellow and one black/ugly/flourescent signs on ONE business' property. FOUR SIGNS!!!! It was more than hard to look at. It was just plain ugly. Have these businesses sunk so far into the idea that people want to see advertising that they've decided to hide their buildings with the yellow signs? I do believe that there was a garden under the signs, but you wouldn't notice it at all due to the glare of yellow. Plus it can't be good to have cement blocks in a garden!
Its time for a change. I LIKE seeing oncoming traffic as I drive or try to pull out of parking lots. I LIKE being able to see buildings and not have to look at big yellow boards taunting me with their messages of what I 'need'. I don't want a new watch. I don't need half price shredders. I don't care if I get one can of tuna for the price of two, or something like that.
I look forward to seeing less of these signs as people realize that direct, in your face advertising is coming to an end. I hope that people can voice this opinion to see less yellow and more green (and i don't mean green signs, you geeks). How about you take a minute and think, ponder, pull hair about a prettier way of letting people know that they should buy that arm chair they can't live without.
Just watch this blog. I'll tell you how in the future. Until then, let's take down the yellow signs. We could probably build a house for a needy family with all that wasted materials.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Today's Stuff
Watch out Superman! Kriptonite exists in Serbia! haha that is so cool! Too bad a superman isn't found with it eh! Check out the full story here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/oukoe_uk_britain_kryptonite
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And now scientists have found a planet that superman could come from! Seems a new planet was found 20 light years away that is called a "Super Earth" being 1.5 times the size of ours. more here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6589157.stm
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And just when you thougth the world wasn't nuts enough, "Polar bear cub Knut in the Berlin zoo received an anonymous death threat, causing alarm at Berlin Zoo on Thursday and prompting heightened security." Now come on. A baby polar bear, cute as anything, getting a death threat? Do you think he could read it?? Maybe get a little scared? yah...wow.
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And now scientists have found a planet that superman could come from! Seems a new planet was found 20 light years away that is called a "Super Earth" being 1.5 times the size of ours. more here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6589157.stm
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And just when you thougth the world wasn't nuts enough, "Polar bear cub Knut in the Berlin zoo received an anonymous death threat, causing alarm at Berlin Zoo on Thursday and prompting heightened security." Now come on. A baby polar bear, cute as anything, getting a death threat? Do you think he could read it?? Maybe get a little scared? yah...wow.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Bell Canada
About a month or two ago, when moving my studio to my basement I had to discontinue my internet from bell canada. Of course you would think it would be a pretty simple task which could go like this:
Me: Hello bell canada representitive. I need to cancel my internet because my business is closing at the end of the month.
B.C: Not a problem Mr.Robb, we'll bill you till the end of the month and send a box for the modem after that. Is that everything? Have a nice day!
But alas, customer service is not on bell's prime objective summery. On my first phone call, I was told that I couldn't cancel because I was signed up on a 5 year contract that started last december when (and I do remember this), a bell sales person called me up and asked if I wanted to upgrade my account to a wireless modem (which never worked because bell doesn't understand that people use MAC computers...). I did verbally agree to this, since I had no current plans to move at that time, but mind you I signed no contract. Needless I hung up with the rep, knowing that I needed to look back into my bills before to get more info.
A week later I called again, going through their automated phone services, and got to talk to a very nice rep who I could not understand what she was saying for the life of me. I explained my situation and what was going on and after being on the phone for just over 10 minutes, and asking her to repeat everything she said at least twice, I hung up in frusteration again when she kept saying that I can't cancel. She did give me another phone number to call to talk to another service rep that may help better. Calling this new number brought me through another set of automated messages (which by the way you don't have to deal with if you just keep pushing 0 as fast as you can!), and I started talking to another lady who spoke slightly better english. Explaining my problem, and the steps i've been through already, she looked into my account and after talking to her manager told me that I could get out of the contract (woo hoo!), but only after paying for 1/2 the time left which equaled about $3400 (not so woo hoo...). I then got my dad involved (he can talk people out of anything), and it was only after he called and had to ask the service rep to repeat herself 5 times that he asked where she was located. Turns out that India is the headquarters for bell CANADA. Great to see a canadian company keeping the jobs here. My dad did finally get a number for a rep here in canada and after only 3 calls to him and an email to the president of customer service for bell did we finally get a call saying that the charges have been taken off and we are free to stop the service.
So quite a relief after being told I had to pay $3000+ just to not use their internet any more. So all was happy.
Then a week later I recieved two new modems in the mail (on the same day). The same modems they tried to get me to use before but don't work with mac computers. (Oh and a side note, according to their tech reps, no one at bell knows how to use mac computers, they're not trained on them at all. You can tell who keeps up with the changing economy of technology!)
Finally today, after a month of waiting for bell to send a box(which they never did) to return the modem that they most likely would try to charge me for, I physically returned ALL the modems to a bell store (no more automated service for me).
So kids, the moral of this story: don't use bell for anything. if you want to work for bell, all the best, but at this rate they'll be going under soon (one can hope).
Me: Hello bell canada representitive. I need to cancel my internet because my business is closing at the end of the month.
B.C: Not a problem Mr.Robb, we'll bill you till the end of the month and send a box for the modem after that. Is that everything? Have a nice day!
But alas, customer service is not on bell's prime objective summery. On my first phone call, I was told that I couldn't cancel because I was signed up on a 5 year contract that started last december when (and I do remember this), a bell sales person called me up and asked if I wanted to upgrade my account to a wireless modem (which never worked because bell doesn't understand that people use MAC computers...). I did verbally agree to this, since I had no current plans to move at that time, but mind you I signed no contract. Needless I hung up with the rep, knowing that I needed to look back into my bills before to get more info.
A week later I called again, going through their automated phone services, and got to talk to a very nice rep who I could not understand what she was saying for the life of me. I explained my situation and what was going on and after being on the phone for just over 10 minutes, and asking her to repeat everything she said at least twice, I hung up in frusteration again when she kept saying that I can't cancel. She did give me another phone number to call to talk to another service rep that may help better. Calling this new number brought me through another set of automated messages (which by the way you don't have to deal with if you just keep pushing 0 as fast as you can!), and I started talking to another lady who spoke slightly better english. Explaining my problem, and the steps i've been through already, she looked into my account and after talking to her manager told me that I could get out of the contract (woo hoo!), but only after paying for 1/2 the time left which equaled about $3400 (not so woo hoo...). I then got my dad involved (he can talk people out of anything), and it was only after he called and had to ask the service rep to repeat herself 5 times that he asked where she was located. Turns out that India is the headquarters for bell CANADA. Great to see a canadian company keeping the jobs here. My dad did finally get a number for a rep here in canada and after only 3 calls to him and an email to the president of customer service for bell did we finally get a call saying that the charges have been taken off and we are free to stop the service.
So quite a relief after being told I had to pay $3000+ just to not use their internet any more. So all was happy.
Then a week later I recieved two new modems in the mail (on the same day). The same modems they tried to get me to use before but don't work with mac computers. (Oh and a side note, according to their tech reps, no one at bell knows how to use mac computers, they're not trained on them at all. You can tell who keeps up with the changing economy of technology!)
Finally today, after a month of waiting for bell to send a box(which they never did) to return the modem that they most likely would try to charge me for, I physically returned ALL the modems to a bell store (no more automated service for me).
So kids, the moral of this story: don't use bell for anything. if you want to work for bell, all the best, but at this rate they'll be going under soon (one can hope).
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