• Like caption contests? So did ABC PR in the Eighties
• Marketing Mark with Mild Snark
• Try this at home!
In every newsroom I ran, I would post random news photos or headlines of an odd nature and invite my fellow radio colleagues to contribute funny captions. So I was pleased and surprised in 1988 when the folks in the PR department at ABC Radio networks came up with this promotional pamphlet:
They’d been asking me to take pictures of my assignments and trips to far-flung places. Almost as if they knew someday in the next century there’d be something called a “blog” and I would have lots of “content.” They especially wanted selfies, the old “analog” kind where you toss the camera to someone nearby.
They told me they had put my photos up on a wall with a pen on a string and asked ABC staffers to contribute captions. Pretty Tom Sawyer-ish: create the idea and have someone else finish the work for you!
So here are the winners – the captions that won the contest and made for a clever piece of PR:
Got any better captions? Put them HERE. Winners receive . . . a hearty thanks.
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