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CHRIS HASSIOTIS
Advertising Notes:
A Questionable Billboard
The first thing you notice is her rear: ripe
and ready and raised to receive—a spank?
Something more? Eyes move from left to right,
and there's the uncomfortably overempha
sized arch of a back, an expanse of bare and
tanned flesh, a billow of blond hair. No head,
though—odd for a woman on all fours.
Oh, wait—her head seems to be inside of
some sort of metal... box? Is her head in an
oven? Is this some sort of suicide-prevention
thing? Isn't it a little sexual for that? Eyes
keep moving rightward, and no, it's no ad for
girls going a little too wild, or for some new
Plath-related event.
The Georgia Federal Credit Union, a
regional, not-for-profit financial institution,
wants Athens to know it offers low-cost home
financing, and you're looking at a billboard
at the northwest corner of Broad and Pulaski
streets. "Money doesn't have to be hard to
find," the ad copy says. (There's another one
like it on Lexington Road, visible to west
bound traffic just outside the Loop.)
Credit unions are not-for-profit institu
tions, and are considered "prudent and conser
vative," according to Wall; this campaign was
intended to broaden the reach of the credit
union's appeal. It's also the first local adver
tising campaign where GFCU (www.gfcuonline.
org) has hired an outside advertising agency,
Atlanta-based Kilgannon.
An argument, though, is that the woman in
the ad is just looking in a dryer, and what else
could you expect someone looking in a dryer
to look like? That's the thing, though; every
piece of something constructed—a painting,
a book, an advertisement on a billboard—is
the result of a choice. And the choice to go
with this decapitated side view could've just
as easily been any other choice: an over-
the-shoulder shot of a woman reaching into
a more easily identifiable dryer; a woman
sitting in front of a dryer, arms raised in exas
peration; a shot from inside the dryer as the
woman peers in to investigate. There's nothing
inherently sexual about the act of looking into
What's up with the billboard? In the past
few weeks in conversations around town,
we've heard this image of a depersonalized,
decapitated, supplicant woman called "offen
sive," "gross," "ridiculous" and "misogynistic,"
so Flagpole got in touch with GFCU, which
referred us to its Atlanta headquarters.
"We certainly did not intend to offend
anyone," says Kim Wall, GFCU's Vice President
of Marketing. "We wanted to use an image
that would attract attention and get people
talking. We have had a few phone calls, and
we explained the process of the campaign,
which is limited, and we'll be moving on to
other images. But that is the only one we've
received complaints about, I will say that."
Other images in the same campaign include
prospective customers combing through couch
cushions, digging through hedges or using a
metal detector.to search for loose change.
"It is a stock photo of this girl," says Wall.
"It's funny to me because it's a girl who's fully
clothed. The advertising is of someone fully
clothed. I mean, I'm a Sunday school teacher.
It's geared towards college kids."
a dryer. More than anything, doing laundry is
generally un-sexy. And there's not even any
laundry in the background of the photo, so
who's to say this isn't some oven and this
some suicide?
Wall attributes the calls she's received to
unfortunate placement of the billboard down
town. People driving west from downtown and
stopped at a traffic light have the right-hand
side of the billboard obscured by the Gameday
condos building. "The building hides the tag
line," says Wall. "They miss the message and
can just see that young lady's blue-jeaned
behind."
She also says that the company acknowl
edges the potential controversy, but says that
advertising is subjective. "I think about the
Super Bowl ads yvhere you may see one you
love and one you hate," she says. "[People]
need to see all of them together to see their
full story told..."
Representatives from Kilgannon could not
be reached by press time.
Chris Hassiotis
Separate my trash?
Whatever.”
Tm not rooting through my trash
to pull out all of my cans and
bottles...just so someone can
make some plastic park bench
out of it. What's the point?
What’s wrong with wooden park
benches? I put out, like, three
bags of garbage a week... I'm not
going through all of that!”
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JUNE 10,2009 • FLAGPOLE.COM 5