Hmm. Ahead of the curve?

I didn't watch the Super Bowl because I'm not really interested in sports. I did watch the four songs by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

Eearlier in the day I read a piece in the Seattle Times about how a local community, Renton, Washington, was going to air during the Super Bowl a commercial promoting the city. I have to say that I found that interesting and I was thinking about watching the game just for that. See "Renton uses Super Bowl ad to boost image."

Instead I saved time because the commercial is on the City of Renton website.

I'd say "ahead of the curve," the theme of the ad, is really missed opportunity.

It gets back to thinking about your audience in terms of the way that Lauffer suggests in Marketing for not-for-profit organizations, in terms of input, throughput, and output publics.

Input publics give you resources. Throughput publics are your employees and stakeholders, the people who do the work. Output publics are to whom your efforts are directed.

This is a "throughput public" ad. It has absolutely no meaning to anybody who doesn't already know what Renton is or does or what its unique selling proposition is. Having a Seattle-area comic reprise his riff on the city, from a local television show that few people ever saw, falls dead.

Clearly governments are a great potential market for strategic communications consulting, except that the people involved don't understand how badly they need the services.