Montana ain't got nothin' on this.
As part of an ongoing project to capture images of local … captivations, I've recently spent some time roughly north of where I am now, but not by much. I think we'll start with this one.
That vast expanse of blue is what you might call "copy space". The sky was really cooperating that day; it kept things interesting and textural near the ground in the form of puffy clouds, and yet managed to remain clear and turquoise higher up.
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Remember that snake ad what took the silver Aster award? Just got an update from Healthcare Marketing Report — the ones who've been giving me "merit" awards — that they dropped the gold on me for the same ad.
The bronze winner for the category (hospital less than 300 beds, single newspaper ad) was Della Femina. Again. That's gotta sting a little.
So the latest round of interesting tasks included creating some cute cartoony mascots for the swim lesson age divisions — from infant through about 13 years old.
The idea was to create something fun and light, with each age division having its own mascot. The youngest was pollywogs, and the oldest was originally going to be whales until I pointed out that might not go over well if anyone on the team was fat. So they got renamed orcas instead.
So far no problem, right? The pollywogs were easy to make cute; they're most of the way there already.
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For starters, well, yecch.*
That out of the way, let's talk about this video for a moment. These women are viably conventionally heterosexually attractive. Buxom, one blond and the other brunette. I mention this because it's clear that the video was intended — scat aside — to appeal to heterosexual men. Apart from the parts that have spawned so many intense reactions on YouTube, this movie is clearly made with a het male audience in mind.
Contrast this to what I've done with various same-gender partners over the years. I can assure you that it's been quite conventional. No leather, no whips, no latex, and no poop. Just what can be done with one healthy body and another, and kisses and hands and love and mutual respect.
When most straight boys get to third base with their girls, to me and my male lovers, that's basically been the home run. Get it?
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It's easy to forget that sometimes humor has a basis in reality. Another nugget of manufactured deliciousness from Retro Press.
Yeah. Spambled eggs. And for God's sake, give me that Spam and Velveeta sandwich. Because nothing goes with a brick of chopped processed pig meat better than a slab of vinylized cheeselike product.
This was another one that presented what the management types call a "challenge", specifically, how to grab the attention of a prospective ortho surgeon who's thinking about changing venues?
Our physician recruiter's looking to get a new ortho in to help the ones we've already got. The practice is thriving and filling a definite need. Again, we have some limitations in our venue (the previous post notwithstanding) in that it doesn't always offer the most spectacular vistas. While we work to address that*, I came up with this as a grabber for a postcard.
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We got ‘em.
I actually took this one back in December, but what the heck.
At least when you're hiring professionals.
It's been a bad habit in the past for us to create position ads that are far, far too dense on text. While HR wants to list every benefit — which does make sense as a marketing tool — the truth is that most healthcare facilities have equivalent benefits. And writing all that copy produces an ad that looks more like a car-rental contract than a job opening.
For a while we were trying to focus on the things to see and do in the area, but to my mind that's not such a good idea. We're about 30 miles from Laughlin, NV, where people go to gamble; next closest major destination is Vegas at 90 miles, then Flagstaff at 120 and Phoenix at 180. There's hiking, to some extent, though not as much in the immediate locale as one might prefer; and there are lakes as well but each one is far enough away to qualify as a day trip.
Besides, we're not really looking for people who plan to spend every weekend in Vegas.
Another strategy has been to show images of some of the locale, most notably the western end of the Grand Canyon — which is only easily accessible by helicopter flight, so I'm not sure what the point is. I suppose what set my teeth most on edge was when I learned a former recruiter had taken out a full-page ad extolling the virtues of this city — but included, as the only photograph, a shot of Havasupai Falls.
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Things, things, I got things.
I don't always have the luxury of time when I'm doing what I do. Sometimes I have to go for something fast, cheap and easy. This doesn't always equal bad; sometimes it even yields some non-excremental results.
F'rinstance, it was only the other day, when I got an emailed copy of our own press release, that I realized we had a cancer awareness expo coming up, and there was no collateral material for it. No flyers, no ads, nothing. D', as they say, oh.
I didn't have a lot of time to lay hands on an image for it; initially I was toying with the idea of getting a group shot of various people having what appeared to be a happy, somewhat comfortable conversation, taking the saturation way down and dropping a pink ribbon on one of them (at 100% sat) to emphasize the hidden-yet-common nature of cancer.
Unfortunately (or perhaps not), no such stock images really jumped out at me. I was thinking then of using silhouettes, but that didn't grab me either, when I saw a pretty strong graphic that got my attention. It was just a pair of silhouetted cut-out dolls. They weren't rendered in a way I could use, do I did my own.
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One of our better known physicians is also incredibly busy, and commensurately difficult to nail down for a photograph. I went into cahoots with our cath lab supervisor and was able to grab him for about 90 seconds. Shot 12 frames. The best of the lot is below the fold.
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Early in the era of talkies, a man named Al Jolson put on blackface and issued what is regarded by many today as one of the most shameful performances in American cinema through The Jazz Singer.
Possibly the only way for him to be more obnoxious would be to affect a Rochester accent, eat watermelon and fried chicken, and demand to know where the white women is at. You'd think that after eighty years we'd be a little more enlightened about our stereotypes, would be less apt to roll in the self-made filth of bigotry.
Cal Grondahl must live in another dimension.
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