Posted 4/08/2005 05:06:00 PM by Douglas

Sadly, it's come to this. Advertising on a dollar bill:

The trade publication Advertising Age reported this week that cable television's USA Network has launched an unusual promotion to publicize its upcoming "Traffic: The Miniseries."

The network is distributing 50,000 one-dollar bills in trendy bars in Los Angeles and New York. Affixed on each of those bills: a removable sticker bearing the USA Network logo, along with the title and airtime of the three-part miniseries.

Based on the movie of the same title, the show is about drug dealers, users, and the position of cash at the center of drug culture lifestyles.

I don't know if the USA mini-series is going to suck, but I'm going to have to assume that it does, since the movie was already ripped off from a British mini-series that was much better. But using dollar bills as advertising? Why?

"The topic of 'Traffic' revolves around the many ways that money lures people into incredibly dangerous situations," said Paul Woolmington, CEO of Media Kitchen, the New York-based agency that created the campaign. "We did a lot of brainstorming, and it all came back to money."

You could cut the irony in that sentence with a bulldozer. A bunch of marketing money-whores want to put forth the message about money luring people into dangerous situations? I guess basing your career on convincing people to buy a bunch of crap that don't need wasn't good enough, so they had to go with the message literally on the money.

To quote the late, great Bill Hicks yet again:

If you're in marketing or advertising . . . kill yourself. No, seriously, there's no justification for what you do, you are all Satan's little helpers, kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself now.