Have a look at this picture: a romantic scene of young(ish) love? It's in the local tourism brochure - but who are the people pictured? In this case J and J - the council's graphic designers, forced to pose for the latest publicity-fest. And they REALLY don't get on!
She's probably piercing his foot with her stilletto and he probably had something VERY garlicky for dinner to make it doubly unpleasant if they insist on a snogging shot. (They wouldn't dare).
The picture IS taken in Wirral - but I've eaten on the patio of Sheldrakes Restaurant, overlooking the Dee Estuary, so I KNOW they are freezing their tits off too. And they won't have got their dinner. That's water in the glasses.
When I worked for the council's PR team we discontinued using filed shots of the public after I inadvertently put some dead people on the front of the Council Tax demand. I don't mean they were dead in the picture (in a 'pay up or you're next' sort of way). That would have just been wrong. But they had popped their clogs since the picture was taken and the family were upset when it arrived in the post. That was when we started only using staff. They were on tap and they didn't cost anything.
I was on the Wirral Events Guide in 2009 and they wouldn't even let us pop the champagne... we had to look like we were just about to pop it.
I'm just getting involved in Wirral Bookfest again, this time fighting in the libraries' corner and not PR's.
Here are some of the silly wittily ironic pics referencing great books that we did for the first one in 2008.
...these are all people I worked with and begged, bribed or threatened to take part...
The beer, on this occasion was real beer on account of the fact that (a) it is difficult to replicate and (b) see 'bribe' above.
The boy with the guitar was the 'face of recycling' for years because of a picture his mum (you guessed - another PR person) took at a bottle bank when he was 5!
J was left to his own devices while I was away last year and tried to convince everyone that a picture of someone on the loo reading 'Gone With the Wind' was a great idea! *sighs*
The hardest one was getting the dog (Fizz!) to look like she was reading. There was another dog - Goober - but he wanted his own trailer and hairdresser.
So look again at publicity shots and ask yourselves: is one arm twisted behind their back? Is that cute kid now a stroppy teen? Are they even still alive?
p.s. What do you think about the new header / layout? I've been tinkering and I'm not so sure.
That was funny. You managed to take all the romance out of the picture very well! I quite like the new look - I like the beigy background -it's easy on the eye. I can't get on with those blogs which are black and the writing is red - that kind of thing. I always feel I've wandered onto a Hammer horror movie set or something.
ReplyDeleteIt looks fab!
ReplyDeleteI love this. My daughter works in communications for a council, sounds familiar! Thanks for visiting my blog. You are not far from me by the sounds of it.
ReplyDeleteHaha. J and I do get on... just look at how tenderly she is reaching for my hand. :P
ReplyDeleteI really like the Bookfest stuff (especially the Sleeping Beauty one) but maintain that 'Gone With The Wind' would have been the best of the bunch!
Coincidentally, I'm doing another photo-shoot on Tuesday for a new recycling campaign. Since you are a wordsmith you can have a sneak preview... one of the ads is about washing your bottles/jars/tins etc before putting them in the bin, so my idea is (drumroll please) the 'green rinse brigade'!
I know what you mean, Fran. A blog has to be exceptional for me to plough through if it's white on black or similarly challenging to read. I need to play with my header more, though.
ReplyDeleteTa Moptop and Elizabeth - which council does your daughter work for?
James!! Hello and welcome to my 'pad' - poetic license (I do have one!). Re your campaign... how about CLEAN and GREEN?? Oh, and I'm coming to the meeting about the next Bookfest... tee hee!