... and Savvy Advertisers dont use (Obscure) acronyms
W T F ?
I spotted this advertisement across many major lamposts outlining the major roads to the WorldBank/IMF Bankers and Governors meeting held in Singapore this month.
While the entire country prepares itself to welcome about 22,000 delegates with security precautions, road closures, road re-paving and tons of marketing dollars and campaigns to showcase itself to the world such as this, I felt that the poster above is done in an amateurish way.
One glance at it and I bet my last dollar the instinctive reaction is that Savvy Bankers use Intellectual Property. While I agree with the context and meaning of the message, I would question how its targetted.
In any case, I, and the rest of the world, would be wrong. A closer look at the icon on the bottom right corner reveals a Cisco, Inc logo:
which effectively means, Savvy Bankers use Internet Protocol !?!? That would explain why there portray of an image of a person trying to surf (wirelessly). I would suspect that Cisco, itself, is supplying the networking equipment and infrastructure to make sure anyone and everyone can surf wirelessly around the meetings and events.
That, however, would not explain the obscurity of the advertisment and its message. Gosh, I would think TCP/IP is an obscure abstract now that no one else would need to know of it even though it is the major underlying internet transport protocol.
In fact, I would argue - the more savvy you are, the less you need to know about about the plumbings. How many people would (want to) know how their household plumbings work and the standards involved other than that they can turn on the tap and do wonderful things with it ?
In the same context, I am betting that the SOAP protocol would be obscure one day as well and just be known as "Web Services" or whatever flavour rule the day.
Now, which would be a better advertisment ?
Great agile applications use SOAP ?
OR
Great agile applications use Web Services ?
I rest my case - the marketing people who came out with the image shown above should be canned. No questions needed.
