There are a couple of billboards along Interstate 15 in Orem that drive me nuts. Most billboards are simply eyesores or distractions. These, however, are insulting.

The newer one of the two is from Qwest, the telecom most folks are stuck with. It talks about DSL, and other internet-ish stuff, and says “shop for services from the neighbor you already know.”

Okay, first of all, you’re not my neighbor no matter how you stretch the word.

Secondly, I don’t think of my neighbors as sources for these “services.” Not even the neighbors I already know.

This billboard makes me happy that my internet connection is provided by Comcast. At least they don’t pretend that they live next door and want to borrow sugar.

The second one REALLY bugs me. It’s got a picture of Heather Beers, the actress in the popular LDS movie-from-a-book “Charly,” holding a couple of wedding-related items. It’s an ad for a bridal shop, or maybe shoppe. I’m not sure.

This is a really pretty picture of Heather. It’s the same EXACT pose — same photograph — used on a much nicer billboard that has since been replaced. See, I think she only agreed to provide them with a single photograph, and they re-used the photograph and changed the props she was holding. The result is that you have this very attractive person standing very naturally, holding things that would not be naturally held in this pose.

But that’s not the part that really bugs me. The part that bugs me is the tagline… “Icing on the cake, and everything in between.”

There are two ways to interpret this: First, Icing is only ONE ITEM ON THE LIST for brides-to-be, so there can’t be anything “between” it and the missing next item.
The other interpretation is that both icing and cake are mentioned… but the way they’re listed, they’re ADJACENT. The icing, as they’ve said themselves, is ON THE CAKE. THERE IS NOTHING BETWEEN THE ICING AND THE CAKE, UNLESS YOU ARE TRYING TO POISON THE GUESTS.

Oh I know what they’re TRYING to say. “We have lots of stuff that you wouldn’t think of buying at a bridal shop/shoppe/minimart.” This got said much better in an ad I saw for a bridal show — “everything but the groom.” Were I a potential groom, that would actually turn me on a little bit, and maybe, in some alternate universe where I’m single, desperate, and yet very confident, I’d go to the bridal show and try to pick up on women who don’t yet have a groom. That ad didn’t have a recycled picture of Heather Beers, though.

I hope Heather is as bugged by this as I am. Especially since a little Googling for biographical information shows that she has worked in the advertising business.