I’m sure you’ve seen vehicles driving around (or even parked) that have the logo of some company emblazoned somewhere on the side or back. What great advertising right? A moving billboard seen by the thousands upon thousands of drivers that always seem to be on Minnesota’s roadway system.

The problem starts when trying to figure out what kind of car to have your name put on. Idealy you would want something that “matches” your business and your clientelle, right? Does that seem reasonable?


When I worked for and engineering firm out in Bozeman I remember coming back from lunch one day and parked in our parking lot was a honking yellow Hummer H2 with some company’s logo painted on the side. To me, it did not instill confidence in the financial decision making of that company. Granted, I’m sure there were many people in Bozeman that were very impressed at the sweet ride that this company had. And I would guess those people had a lot more money to spend than me.

So today, on my way back from lunch I saw a car traveling down the road with a company’s name and phone number. The company was called “Affordable Granite and Stone”. That right there says something about a company, it exudes certain connotations, and gives you a point of reference for when you would deal with these people. I’m thinking that they would offer nice but not overly spendy granite and stone. This isn’t the kind of shop that millionaires would shop at for polished italian marble. This is where Joe Schmo would shop because it’s affordable.

But there was something else saying something about the company. Something, that to me, said something completely different. The car that had the name on it was a brand new, shiny yellow Dodge Magnum…with giant spinner rims!

Right then and there I figured that maybe I wasn’t the market that this company was going after. It just puts out the wrong message. Like maybe the granite and stone aren’t quite afordable enough. It would be like a custom cabinet shop owner driving around a BMW.

I have a new friend in the advertising business, I wonder what her opinion on the matter is. I don’t know enough about marketing and advertising, but this kind of thing just doesn’t work for me. They certainly got me to remember their name, but when I remember the name I’ll also remember the chromed out rims spinning at a different rate than the tires and continue looking through the yellow pages.