"Last night, as we were getting ready for bed, my 4-year-old got into the kitchen cupboard, and pulled out a thermos. 'What's that for?' I asked.
'Spiders.'
'Um, ok, so you're gonna hit spiders with the thermos? Do we have spiders?'
'No, last night I had a scary dream about spiders. So tonight, I'm going to wake up, and catch them in it.'
He slept all night with the thermos under his arm. Ready.
Now, sidestepping the issue that this is just about the cutest thing in the entire world, and one of the very reasons I love being a dad more than anything I've ever been, the whole thermos-as-spider-eradicator thing, as most things do, eventually made me think about advertising.
How do you choose the tools you're going to use?
Just because it makes perfect sense to you, doesn't mean it's going to work the way you think it's going to. And it doesn't mean it's going to make sense to anybody else.
The stuff that makes you feel really safe rarely does anything to actually stop the spiders.
New definition: Thermos advertising - something that makes you feel really safe and smart, but actually accomplishes nothing."
