We're a lot like Pemco says we are
Posted: Tuesday, April 29, 2008 3:00 AM by Allison Linn
Filed Under:
Cars and trucks, Financial services
Even if you don’t live in the Pacific Northwest, you probably have some stereotypes about us lurking in your head. Well, here’s a dirty little secret -- for all our talk of individualism, all of your stereotypes about us are true.
We are a region of smug hybrid owners, recycling fanatics and recumbent bicycle commuters. We love to broadcast our beliefs via bumper stickers. Before we moved here we may have been more fashionable, but now we see nothing wrong with wearing socks with our sandals, preferably paired with those pants that can unzip to become a pair of shorts should the weather improve. If we want to get fancy, we might throw a fleece vest over the whole ensemble.
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| Pemco |
Our region is home to many long-haired, caffeine-addicted, socially challenged software geeks. Far too many Pacific Northwesterners are still sporting the bad hair and flannel shirts of the elsewhere long-forgotten grunge era. The only thing we love more than using our rain barrels and compost bins is boasting to our friends about them.
The regional insurance company Pemco Insurance knows all this, and it’s created a brilliant ad campaign around it. Using the tagline “We’re a lot like you,” Pemco manages to poke fun at residents of the Pacific Northwest without offending us. (Of course, if you live in the Pacific Northwest, you know most of us would be far too passive-aggressive to say anything even if we were offended).
People who don’t live in Seattle or its environs may not get all of the company’s spot-on “Northwest profiles.” But chances are anyone can laugh at “The Super-Long Coffee Orderer,” “Gluten-Free-No-Refined-Sugar Lady,” “Accidental Tech Millionaire” and, most notably, “Confused East Coast Transplant.”
Also, you don’t have to live in the Northwest to see your friends -- or yourself -- in “Your Friend Who Won’t Stop Talking About Real Estate,” “Art Gallery Crawler” and “Walla Walla Wine Wine Woman Woman.”
(By the way, the editor of this blog has self-identified as “Too-Late-For-The-Grunge-Party,” while yours truly admits to being “Obsessive Compulsive Recycler.”)
In an age of when mergers have folded so many regional stores into national behemoths, and every mall seems to carry the same clothes from the same stores, it’s refreshing to see an ad campaign -- and, by extension, a company -- that’s focused on one part of the country. Better yet, it’s nice to see a local company making ads that are any good.
Click here to watch the television ads, listen to the radio spots, peruse the profiles and even submit your own.
