by GIDEON GINRACHMANJINJa-VITUS, Alternate Reality News Service Economics Writer
The billboard is one part Norman Rockwell, two parts Hieronymous Bosch. Two men are fighting over a white picket fence in green back yards. They look apoplectic, their faces so contorted they could explode at any second. The man on the left brandishes a chainsaw. The man on the right, a pair of barbecue tongs (but, the way he's holding them!). The tag line reads: "Love thy neighbour...or suffer the consequences!"
If you have a telescope out while driving past the billboard, set it to 100 times magnification and train it on the lower left hand corner. There you will see the name of the message's sponsor: The Love Institute.
"Yes, we are responsible for the billboard," Nick Yazzie, Joyineer-in-Chief at the Love Institute allowed. "Our last two campaigns to raise awareness of the power of love in the world...well, they hadn't gone so well, you know, so we decided to take a different approach."
The Love Institute's previous promotional campaign - called "All You Need is Love" and featuring images of kittens, puppies and adorable babies - premiered a month before the world economy collapsed. Although there is no agreed upon measure for the love in the world, most Emotionologists agree that that was not a good time for love.
The Love Institute's promotional campaign before that - "Love is the Drug," which featured tasteful depictions of romantic couples from history and literature - was rolled out two months before the Iraq War. "If we had any warning that the war would happen," Yazzie stated, "of course we would have delayed the campaign. But, President Bush repeatedly assured the public that he was doing everything in his power to avert war so...that disaster happened..."
In order to stop the slide, the Love Institute went negative.
Although you cannot measure how much love there is in the world, you can measure how much love is given to the Love Institute, and, when we say "love” we really mean "cash donations." According to Yazzie, in the five months that the new campaign has been public, donations have bwintupled. (Bwintuple is an accounting term that means, "gone up by a huge percentage which cannot be made public for tax reasons. Sorry we can't be more specific. Still, you would be very, very impressed if we could.")
Not everybody is showing love for the Love Institute's new campaign, however. Fear, Incorporated, for example, has expressed outrage that its primary product has been appropriated by its rival for public sentiment space.
"We have been building our brand for decades," said Fear, Inc.'s Head Hater Honcho Roosevelt Gipson. "When a politician or corporation consults with us on how to vilify its opponents or make the public receptive to its radical ideas, it knows exactly what kind of campaign it will be getting. This - this! - could very well undermine our credibility with our clients!"
"Frankly," Gipson added, "those scum-sucking, thumb-sucking, plum-sucking peacenik loving...lovers - you know, those people - are undermining the basis of the entire world economic system, by which I mean our company's entire business model! Expect lawsuits!"
Criticism of the new campaign has also come from supporters of the Love Institute. For instance, in a private email to Yazzie, kabillionaire George Soros wrote that he was concerned that the new campaign would undermine the Institute's raison d'etre (literally: existence as a dried grape).
In an exclusive shared by 127 other media outlets, the Alternate Reality News Service has received a copy of the letter which read in part: "...wash the soap out of your sternum! Hate and love may be two sides of the same coin in literature, but in marketing they just..."
We, uhh, we'll get back to that letter as soon as we obtain a copy of a part that actually makes sense.
Despite the criticism - at least, we assume it's despite the criticism, although the criticism may actually have brought the issue to their attention or otherwise given them cause to take the Love Institute's new campaign seriously, in which case it would have been because of the - okay. Starting again. Despite an ambiguous relationship with the criticism, other progressive groups are watching the Love Institute's campaign very closely.
"We've taken a serious beating over the last decade," admitted Roland Redland Randolph, Good Vibes Chairman of the Peace Group. "A very serious beating. If we have to go to war to promote peace, well, the cause is worth it."
Simmer Bouquin, National Vice President in Charge of Funky Zenness at URU (the Understanding Research Unit), concurred. "Fear and hate are in," she said. "We would be fools not to capitalize on them!"