She's shooting
the bird all over town
Or that's sure what it looks like at first glance
By Toni Fitzgerald
Dec 4, 2009
The woman on the billboard seems to be giving you the finger.
She holds her hand in front of her face, one finger lifted in the air, a defiant expression on her face. She's clearly not happy.
To her left is a red space, with this warning written in white letters: "She's tired of waiting."
Upon second glance you realize she's not raising her middle finger. She's raising her index finger, the one where women wear their engagement rings. Her finger is bare.
It's an ad for a jeweler, and one that's drawing a huge reaction in Chattanooga, Tenn., where more than half a dozen of the billboards are scattered around the city.
At first glance, it really does look like the woman is making a rude gesture. It's only when you look the second time that the gag becomes clear.
Some people think it's a scream and others are calling it tasteless. But whatever their opinion, they are talking about it.
"I've spent 43 years in the business, and of all the advertising gimmicks we've tried, this particular billboard has generated more comments than the rest of the advertising put together, good and bad," says Barry Schenck of M.M. Schenck Jeweler in Chattanooga. "I respect their opinions, but you're not able to please people all the time."
Unimpressed by the ideas of the billboard company for how to advertise this holiday season, Schenck challenged the women on his staff to help him come up with an idea. They looked on the web.
There they found an image of a woman raising her index finger just so, and Schenk thought it would be a fun way to drum up business. Plus, he didn't have to look far to find his model.
"The model on the billboard is an employee in the store, she is single, and she does have a boyfriend who is dragging his feet," says Schenck. "That is her empty finger she is holding up."
The billboards will remain up until just after Christmas. Though Schenck does not have any solid numbers yet, he says public response to the billboards has far outweighed last year's campaign.
"Last year we ran [on the billboards] a designer line from Canada of platinum diamond engagement rings," Schenck says. "We ran the rings on the same billboards, and we had three or four phone calls saying 'how much is that ring,' but no feedback."
As Schenck admits, this is not a new idea. In Philadelphia, for
example, Robbins Diamonds has been running a nearly identical billboard
campaign. But it's a very effective idea.
The campaign worked for two reasons. First, it forced passersby to take a second look to figure out if they'd seen what they thought they did, a woman giving them the finger. Upon second glance, they realized that it was a different finger, made the connection to the jeweler, and either laughed at or lamented the ad's cheekiness.
Second, it drew a huge amount of free publicity because of the controversy. Several local news stations have run stories on the billboard, the Chattanooga newspaper has covered it, and people have stopped into the store just to say they liked it.
For that reason, there may be a sequel in the works. It really depends on whether the woman on the billboard gets an engagement ring later this month.
"We thought that a little prodding and pushing might make him commit, but at this point I don't know," Schenck says. "When and if he does, we thought we'd come back with the same billboard, and rather than an empty ring finger, a big diamond ring on it and we'd say 'Got it.'"
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