Fergie's Tech Blog

Verizon Fined by District for Chalk-on-Sidewalk Advertising

Wow -- this sounds like an April Fool's joke, but I think it's for real.

Arshad Mohammed writes in The Washington Post:

The District [of Columbia] said yesterday that it fined Verizon Communications Inc. $1,050 for stenciling orange-red chalk ads on sidewalks across the city to promote its Yellow Pages.

Verizon, the nation's second-largest phone company, thought it had found a nifty way to get consumers' attention when it began spraying about 135 chalk advertisements around the city on Sunday.

"Looking for Something? Find it in the . . . Verizon Yellow Pages," read the roughly 2-by-3-foot ads that turned up on heavily trafficked sidewalks, including in Northwest near the Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan Metro stop and on K Street downtown.

posted by Fergie @ 4/01/2006 10:14:00 AM