Bad Marketeers

Still car-less (I should have Bix back by tomorrow YEA and FINALLY!) and tooling around town by bus, I've stumbled across some truly odd—ludicrously stupid even—marketing efforts.

There's a bus stop right in front of the library which is also right across from the apartment complex Ten Faxon Place. Their tagline is Life in Balance.

Life in Balance? How would living at Ten Faxon put my life in balance? Does every $2,500+ one bedroom rental come with free personal therapists and yoga?

Is the target market all the singleton 30-somethings who’ve got the bigs bucks for Back Bay, South End and Harvard Square but find town life too, em, convenient? Quincy Center's a 40-ish minute T ride from Boston's Biz District. Are the marketeers saying “you can have beauty and elegance here too without all the pesky ease of living in town AND we’ll charge you just as much?”

Seriously, if I'm not getting a built in/no extra freight therapist, hot tub, masseuse and  personal chef, what's the upside, what's the balance infusing glory to convince me to live here versus equally expensive Back Bay?

And then I got on the 216 and saw this:

To Fall In Love With God Is The Greatest Romance
Mebbe it’s just me BUT, it seems pretty damned reductive to put your theoretical supreme bean on the same level as Rhett Buttler, Mister Rochester or Christian Grey. Nicht wahr? Who’re they trying to pull in with an ad like this? Junior members of the local Lonely Hearts Club?

To Seek Him Is The Greatest Adventure
Huh.
So this god of theirs plays hide and seek or are they saying that hunting him up is on par with scaling the Andes, fording the Nile, crossing the Sahara and triking the Hebridian Trail? K.

To Find Him Is The Greatest Human Achievement
Oh rilly?

1. “he” was lost? Is this similar to Columbus "discovering" America?
2. regarding human acheivements—polio's elimination, ending AIDs, vaccines (!!!),  targeted cancer therapies don’t rate?
3. hyperbole much?

Who’re they trying to bring into their church? Who's their target market? None but the most gullible, dimbulbed, desperate, pulp novel reading lovelorn? Why don’t they just come straight out with it:

Hey, have you been nastily ignored and/or dumped by every guy you’ve ever crushed on? Do you read Harlequin Romances for breakfast, lunch and dinner? Are you, be honest now, hoping to find THE MOST unobtainable hot dude? Are you tired of having to think for yourself? Sick to death of having to be all logic based OR not even sure what that is?
We’re the place for you!

If this god dude wants to expand his customer base he really needs to hire better marketing teams. The folks he’s got now are just trolling for the most pathetic, low hanging fruit.

Thank you, this has been another ep of Ridiculous Marketeers in Action.