Billboard offering car in exchange for ‘date with son’ leaving many Phoenix drivers dismayed

PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) - A film production company posing as a woman trying to help get her “shy” son a date is advertising their new movie called “No Hard Feelings.”

Elsewhere in the Valley, the latest installment of “Scream” is also working to catch the public’s attention.

The “No Hard Feelings” ad reads along with a featured photo of the Buick:

So, is this kind of advertising effective? Peter Buck with Riester Advertising Company said, “The first rule in advertising is to get people’s attention, and the company did that in a pretty smart way. It’s almost like a Trojan horse.” Other aspects of advertising, Buck said, had to be considered by an advertising agency are the audience the production hopes to attract, whether it is appropriate or inappropriate, and the cultural context and how it will be perceived.

The latest installment of the ‘SCREAM’ movie franchise features ‘Ghostface’ in several different ads across the Arizona. Buck said he wasn’t a fan of the marketing idea. “A scare tactic is an old tactic, and I wouldn’t use it. The launch of a film, I don’t think, is a good time for this,” he said. “It’s very appropriate for the genre itself, but I think in the times we live in, I wouldn’t approve of that as an idea myself.”

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