March 19, 2012: "Be a Tree Hugger"

Author:
C. Sloan

Concept:
Our prolific guest author took an unexpected environmental angle this week, applying what is sometimes a pejorative phrase in a new and decidedly positive direction in which the reader is encouraged to embrace a lovely piece of Massachusetts silver with rich coin-gray color and pretty blue toning at the rims.

Captions that didn’t make the cut:
Our first draft for this ad was oh so serious, with "Minted in Boston just 30 years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock."

And while that sounded suitably weighty to us, we did struggle with the fact that these Small Planchet Shillings were actually struck years after their 1652 date, creating an awkward need to either fudge the numbers in the name of artistic license, or try to cram a long explanation into a very small space.

In the end, we opted for choice C: Neither.

Which does not mean we won’t use this idea in a future ad. We probably will at some point, but when we do it will not be just a week after we have run another serious ad (as in the present situation).