Eating Babies is Good Marketing

If you want to gain national attention and get people and journalists talking about you from one side of the country to the other, let people know the truth. Tell them you eat babies.

Haven't you heard? Stephen Harper, Canada’s Prime Minister, eats babies. And all the people who use Toronto public transit know about it.

Okay, okay, so he doesn’t eat babies. In this rather amusing but insightful article a witness who worked with Harper for five years swears he never saw our new prime minister eat a single baby during that time.

Set aside all the politics for a second: I’ve got to get me a device like this that will transmit my messages on the transit system electronic display boards, because that is a hell of a marketing ploy.

First you have all the weary transit riders thinking they’re hallucinating and then everyone’s talking about it. And there are news articles… Yep, this is one sure way to generate national attention.

(going into a slight rant for a second…)
Okay, okay. So there wouldn’t be all that much attention if it wasn’t Stephen Harper. But I still think that if I was going to resort to electronic vandalism, I’d put up something other than a political statement. And so what if there’s a little jail time if you get caught? When you’re an author, a crime writer, that’s just more PR for you. Plus, going to jail for a couple months isn’t punishment – it’s free research.

Now, if you want the political scoop on why someone would put this particular message up, I suspect it’s because Mr. Harper’s government scrapped the national daycare plan our previous government wanted to institute.

And the minute you start discussing child rearing and such, tempers flare. This is a hot topic amongst certain people. When I did early childhood intervention work, I sometimes worked with children onsite in daycares, sometimes in preschools, sometimes at home. I saw children in a number of environments. I certainly have my opinions about the way things should and shouldn’t be done. But all I’m going to say here is that instead of investing all government money in federally governed daycare, the money goes to parents directly to use as they see fit to care for their child. If that’s hiring Grandma to look after Junior, that’s fine. If it’s going to daycare once a week, that’s fine. I do respect a government that has said they aren’t going to dictate through financial incentives a program that pressures parents to choose daycare over other options.

Besides, daycare is provincially regulated in Canada and it does burn me when the federal government starts sticking their nose into that.
(back off the rant…


So, Mr. Harper doesn’t eat babies. And he hasn’t left them hung out to dry.

But it does make me wonder about various types of advertising. Even the people who said they noticed the message said they wondered if they thought they were hallucinating at first. It brings to mind rows of weary travelers, staring vacantly off at floors, windows, past faces, not really focusing on anything.

That’s what I remember from my days riding transit.

So, I wonder what kind of effect transit ads have?

I bet almost all of us, asked to name popular advertisements, would list tv ads.

If you had an advertising budget to promote your product – be it art, a magazine, a book, whatever – what do you think the most effective medium would be?

And now, a matter of personal pride
My husband has been promoted in the fire department. He’s been working really hard for this and there were four people up for this, so I’m pleased his hard work has paid off. Congratulations Kevin! And since we’re talking about evilkev, I’ll put the joke he sent me up today.

A boy comes home very excited and runs to his father to tell him he got a part in the school play. The father asks the boy which part he got.

The boy proudly announces "I am going to be the husband".

The father sternly told the boy, "That is no good. You tell your teacher you want a speaking role!"

The firstborn, the new Stuart MacBride. ** More kitten pictures tomorrow.