Damn you Mayor Cheryl Parker

This is the story of how the mayor’s office killed a campaign. I love this story, so forgive my prolixity. Skip to the end if you just want to see where the work ended up.

The Ask: it’s 2024 and the coronavirus is at the back of everyone’s minds—but a new booster has come out. We had to convince Philadelphians to get this new booster. Specifically an audience of black Philadelphians, 50 years old and older. But also kind of all Philadelphians. You know how it goes.

One of the challenges we were working against was the messaging exhaustion surrounding Covid-19. No one wanted to hear about it anymore. Life had gone back to normal, and everyone wanted it to stay that way. So my art partner and I thought we might embrace this feeling, acknowledge it, and use it to our advantage. Thus, Covid-19 Sucks was born. We would capture the annoyance surrounding covid, tie it to other things that annoyed Philadelphians (we’re an annoyed bunch) and make the case that it’s better to just protect yourself against covid and get the new booster.

However, in the process, we decided to self censor. Internal forces deemed “sucks” too edgy, and thought we should dial it back. Thus, Covid-19 Stinks was born.

I really loved this campaign because of how copy focused it was. I had so much fun writing hundreds of lines about things that annoyed Philadelphias. I ended up having to cut everything related to city infrastructure. Which was a lot. Here’s what survived.

Then what followed blew my mind. We presented our work to the client, the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, and they loved this idea. They just had one edit: what if it was Covid Sucks instead of stinks?

They completely understood the voice of Philadelphians in the same way we did, and felt strongly that the tone of voice Covid Sucks hit was better for the city. So, we pulled out our old designs and sent them to the client. They just had to run them up the flag pole.

Up the flagpole it went. For months. And months. Apparently it got all the way up to the Mayor’s office. I can’t say for sure Cheryl Parker killed the idea, but someone in the Mayor’s office said that “sucks” was too edgy. They loved the idea, but if we wanted to run it, we’d have to change it to something like “stinks.”

Well that stunk. But what happened next was kind of beautiful. The Department of Health said it was either sucks or nothing. They’d rather kill the idea than move to a sucky line like stinks. And so they did. We fell back on one of our other concepts. I still like it, but it’s not nearly as splashy. And to be fair, they moved much more towards the older Black audience, which this idea is certainly more suited towards.

Copywriter: Wes Marshall

CD/Art Partner: Jon Mathers

CD: Justin Moll, Colleen Masters