Fork It.

When life gives you lemons, or a crappy job, fork it.

In mid-December of 2009 I was approached by my boss and another colleague to come up with some ‘edgy’ ideas for billboards that would prompt people to visit a website, which we would design in conjunction with the billboards.  The purpose of both the billboard and website campaign was to get people interested in careers in hospitality.

How do you make hospitality edgy?  Usually, I am no stranger to being edgy, but this was going to be tough.  My boss, our President and CEO, told me that he would rather ‘reel me in’ than have to ‘push me to go further.’  So, basically, I had a clean slate to be as edgy as I wanted in my first few drafts of the billboard.

Idea #1:  My first idea was to have a typical stuffy-looking businessman duct-taped to a chair, with duct tape over his mouth and looking like he had been roughed up.   Behind him would be a person in a Chef’s outfit, holding a meat cleaver, and smiling sinisterly.    In big, bold letters we would say “Serve your boss.”

I was “reeled in.” Apparently cannibalism is not something our industry wanted to promote.

Idea #2:  A big, white billboard with a picture of a fork on it.  In big, black bold letters it reads “F–k it.”  At the bottom, we would have the web address Forkit.biz.

This idea was actually a hit, but Fairway Outdoor Advertising relayed to us that it would be doubtful the Department of Transportation would be ok with something that edgy, but “Fork it” would work.

A couple of months later, all of the billboards are now up.  Forkit.biz is now up-and-running, and our web hits show that most of the visits have come from Blackberries or iPhones, meaning people are likely accessing the page as they are driving down the street, which hopefully won’t get anyone hurt.

Nonetheless, I am very proud of this campaign and get calls or texts from friends all of the time that say “hey, just saw your billboard.”

I tell them to go Fork themselves.

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