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8 - Orono Weekly Times Wednesday, February 23, 2005 », tin!; | I, Basic Black by Arthur Black Advertising that's really in your face Marshall McLuhan once declared' that advertising was the greatest art form of the twentieth century. He should see what's happening happening to advertising in* the twenty-first century. There was, for instance, a photograph photograph in my newspaper last week of one Andrew Fischer of Omaha, Nebraska. Andrew is an average-looking dude, 25 to 30-ish I'd reckon, wearing fashionable horn-rimmed glasses and a tasteful, understated understated turtleneck. He's got just a wisp of moustache and a tidy van Dyke goatee dusting his chin. Charming. Presentable. And then there's Andrew's forehead. His forehead carries a black and white slogan that reads: SNORESTOP. It simply simply works. Those four words make Andrew Fischer's forehead worth $55,500 more than yours or mine. Mister Fischer, clever little entrepreneur that he is, has rented out his forehead as advertising space. Snorestop, a company dedicated to muffling muffling the nocturnal log- sawyers of the world, is paying paying Andrew 50 Big Ones and change to keep their brand name Up there, front and centre centre for the next 30 days. Brilliant idea? It certainly is for Snorestop. Andrew's smiling face, with Snorestop's banner emblazoned across the top of it, has been picked up by the wire services and flashed to newspapers and television television stations all over North America and Europe. The company has already garnered a million bucks worth of free publicity with this little caper. Not too shabby for Andrew Fisher, either. Fifty-five thousand, thousand, five hundred bucks is not exactly chump change for a young college student. And if he's like the rest of us, he probably didn't have any conflicting conflicting plans for his forehead for the next month or so anyway; anyway; It's amazing what inventive inventive types can come up with just by using their, well, heads. Take Frank J. Smith of Orlando, Florida. Frank is the proud possessor ofU.S. patent # 4,022,227. His statement of claim reads: "A method for styling hair to cover bald areas using only the individual's own hair, comprising separating the hair on the head into several substantially substantially equal sections, taking taking the hair on one section and placing it over the bald area, then taking the hair on another section and placing it over the first section, and finally taking..." taking..." Well, you get the idea. Frank J. Smith has claimed a Main Street, Orono Proprietors: Gary, Carol & Cory Vreeker • Wedding Cakes • Cakes for all Occasions • Pastries - Donuts - Pies • Bread & Buns 905-983-9779 Closed Sunday and Monday patent giving him exclusive ownership of the 'comb over' - that lame and desperate camouflage gambit deployed by balding men trying to convince convince themselves that they're really not losing hair. Lucky for comb over giants like Pierre Berton and Rene Levesque that they're no longer with us. Presumably, Frank J. Smith of Orlando, Florida would be slapping them with patent infringement lawsuits. Moral of the story: even a bad idea (and believe me, | men, comb overs are ALWAYS a bad idea. Those wispy strands of filament plastered plastered across your burgeoning pinkness make you look like a walking bar code) - even a bad idea can be a moneymaker moneymaker for somebody. Which brings us back to Andrew Fischer and his fore- head-as-billboard concept. Now that's what I call a GREAT idea. Even greater for me than for Andrew. See, Andrew has what is known in the barbering business business as a 'high' forehead. The Snorestop pitch fits snugly in between his eyebrows and his hairline. I, on the other hand, as a chromedome of some decades standing, am pretty much ALL forehead. Andrew gets four words on his ah, billboard. I could print the Sunday edition of the Toronto Star on my noggin noggin and still have room left over for a Thought for the Day and the first four verses of O Canada. In English and French. This could ' be my big break, folks. Wish me luck. Tell your friends. This space for rent. MORRIS FUNERAL CHAPEL LTD. SERVING DURHAM REGION SINCE 1841 ALL FUNERAL SERVICES PREARRANGED AND/OR PREPAID BURIAL - CREMATION - TRANSFERS "WHERE PROFESSIONAL ETIQUETTE IS IMPORTANT' FUNERAL DIRECTORS PAUL R. MORRIS DOUG R. RUTHERFORD GARY M. CONWAY DEBRA D, CAMPKIN 905-623-5480 j DIVISION ST.. BnWMAWVILLE. AT QUEEN ST. DISTRESS CENTRE DURHAM FEELING CORNERED? SCARED? ALONE? 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