Monday, January 23, 2006

Georgia Lawyer Ad Uses The Word "Shit" Live on the Air

Well, sort of - A radio ad read "live" in English had a Spanish word for that term used by the reader of the ad ... .

Once again I launch a tirade/rant about lawyers who buy live spots on radio. Don't do it.

I have written on here several times about how an attorney should never pay for a "live" spot on radio, a spot that is typically a lead in to traffic, news, or headlines. If the short (10 or 15 seconds) spot is recorded, the attorney has total control over content, language and words used, and inflection.

While on the road late last week, and again today, an attorney decided to pay a station for a spot that was run live. What did I hear? A fill in host on drive time A.M. station said this" "Well, looks like this [traffic] report is brought to you by [Georgia] Lawyer [XX XX] ... "if your car is a piece of CACA," call [XX XX] and he'll sue the pants off the guy that sold it to you ... " Surely the host ad libbed.

Niiiice. I am sure the attorney wanted that said. I'm Hispanic and growing up in my house, using the word "caca" meant shit. This city has many hispanic residents and I can bet some were as taken aback as I was in hearing "shit" used live on the air. Now some may use that word as a children's word for "poop" but ...

Not certain if perhaps that was something unique to our family, on Google I found this as to "caca":

[M]eans `shit' in various European languages (particularly Romance languages; sometimes, given the form, a children's word). Go here.

So now a lawyer's message is: Call me if your car is a piece of shit, and I will sue the bastards. I am pretty certain that is NOT the message he sought to convey.