March 30, 2009:

"Booby Prize"

Author:
J. Agre

Concept:
This one was pretty clear cut, since the catchy name of this variety clearly needed to be the central theme of the ad.

And the phrase ‘Booby Prize’ just seemed like a natural for a coin which is clearly a spectacular example of the variety.

Captions that didn’t make the cut:
There weren’t really any serious contenders, though I will admit to briefly considering "Prize Booby", since of course a ‘Booby Prize’ is generally an undesirable thing given as a gag to someone who shoots 119 in a golf tournament (for example).

But the more we thought about it, the more we decided that familiar phrases are most effective even if they present some logical inconsistencies. In fact (and as discussed here in the Archive in the past), they can actually be desirable, as the inconsistencies may cause people to linger over the ads a few extra seconds, possibly imprinting our 800 number into their retina in the process.

And that’s really the whole idea.

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"Booby Prize"