Spotted…
October 2, 2007 11:03 pm…around Boston Common: hawkers with brand-labeled messenger bags handing out free packages of Mentos. While waiting for the light to change, I overheard a passer-by ask one hawker if he had a Pepsi bottle on him, too.
Hawker says, “No. And it’s Diet Coke that works best, anyway.”
Which I thought was pretty amusing. Now, however, it’s irking me that I can’t come up with the word I want. These people weren’t technically hawkers or hucksters (I think) because they weren’t selling the Mentos, they were giving them away.
So is there a word for “people who give out free stuff as an advertising gimmick”?
Pug suggests “People who need the help of a Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm-Flailing Tube Man.” Which I love, but I want something pithier.
(Yes, Poke! I said “pithier!”)
Categories: life in the big city
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5 Responses to “Spotted…”
I’m surprised the good people of Boston haven’t decided that these hawker-like people are giving away fake-bomb making materials and have them arrested and/or fined.
I don’t know what it says about the internet and our country that there is a website devoted to a fake commercial in a cartoon.
Eh. If you can imagine it, it’s probably already on the internet.
Do you want something “pithy and trite”? =0)
I’d settle for pithy this time.
;P
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