I spent this past weekend sightseeing in Washington DC. Had a blast, but let me spare you the tourism and skip right to something interesting. Being in marketing, one thing I always notice when I travel is the advertising, and how it changes from location to location, and gathering place to gathering place. In DC, I saw a lot of ads for seemingly indestructible Panasonic “Toughbook” laptops targeted to the military sector, with witty block letter press conference messaging such as “Legally, we cannot say it can take a bullet” and “Legally, we cannot say it knows where Navy SEAL team three is.” Meanwhile, venture into Philadelphia or Detroit, and Pepsi’s multi-million dollar ad campaign for whatever new color Mountain Dew comes in presents its sell messaging encoded in street lingo, spraypainted on a brick wall. Consider yourself profiled by marketing, based on where you’re standing, at all times.

The most interesting ad campaign I encountered in DC was an anonymous one asking a compelling question: “Do you own a US oil company?”