While gathering information for our new construction supplies catalog here at the office, I noticed one of our tape suppliers had redesigned their website, and are using the above image on their main page. What exactly its trying to say sparked quite a discussion in the breakroom, even among non-designers. I don't know how long we argued over this, but I think it was about 15 minutes because "Texas Justice" was half-over when we started, and I walked out as the show finished...
The copy reads "Our Tape Is Smart", on an image of a pair of black horn-rimmed glasses with masking tape affixed to one arm holding it in place.
This is fierce.
A programmer told me they were almost offended by the image, because it used the image of the nerdy guy in taped-up-glasses to convey the thought "smart". An accountant echoed his sentiment, adding that "the image of a nerdy engineer doesn't make me more confident in the quality of their tape product".
Interesting, because that's precisely why I love it. Most of the dudes in school that wore taped-up glasses were a lot smarter than me, and I was at the top of my class. I don't know about you, but those are precisely the guys I want making sure something as important as duct tape is properly engineered.
When I'm standing on the side of the highway in the pouring rain trying to tape up a torn plastic mattress cover in the bed of my pickup to keep it from getting wet, I want to know that the tape I'm using was engineered by a smart person with tape on their glasses. There's a certain comfort there, at least to me, that the person engineering the tape that will keep that mattress from getting soaked is so busy making well-engineered tape that they can't even spend the time to fix their glasses. That's the kind of genius I want making the duct tape that I'll use to temporarily repair a leaky sink pipe on Thanksgiving morning. You can't chance using a brand engineered by someone of lesser intelligence.
Distilled down, what this says to me is: Three out of four top engineers use our tape to fix their own glasses. Isn't that good enough for you?
At least for me, you bet it is.
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