Last week I enjoyed a wonderful vacation in Florida. On the drive down, we saw multiple billboard signs to visit “South of the Border,”a dinky tourist attraction/theme park on the North and South Carolina border, and an example of successful marketing by using persistent messages and images.

The theme is Mexican and playful. Black billboards with Western style typography and colorful sombrero hats stick out to the weary driver on the monotonous road, beckoning to stop by and visit this plastic, campy world, with jumbo cactuses, and cartoonish Mexican caricatures.

On arriving, we made a beeline for “Pedro’s Coffee Shop,” which boasted the largest sign in sight. Missing Starbucks, we were happy imagining even boiled coffee in a tin pot, but the trick was on us, because the store was really a hat store. They did have Maxwell house coffee, way in the back of the store, as a bonus for buying a hat!!

We discovered that each store we ventured into had a sign that did not match its contents! We started to wonder, for whose amusement was the park really for??

Hungry, we finally moved on, without checking out the restaurants there, half expecting them to sell leather shoes instead.

Several of us had childhood memories of the billboards but had not actually ever visited the park, so we did leave with this revisited mystery finally satisfied.

As I walked into my daughter’s classroom yesterday, all of the children immediately stopped what they were doing and watched every step that I took to see whose mom I was. Followed up with the “That’s your mom?!?” comment. Since I am the youngest mom in the classroom, I always tend to get asked, “Whose mom are you?” and “How old are you?”

Then the comparisons seem to start:

“My mom took me to the Please Touch Museum this weekend.”

“Well, my mom took us to Chuck E Cheese.”

“My mom is a nurse and she helps sick people.”

“Oh yeah, well my mom was on a billboard!”

And with that comment, all eyes are on me. And I begin to explain, yes, I was on a billboard for the digital advertising agency that I work for. After a few smiles and nods things return to normal… and I turn a nice shade of crimson.

Working as the search engine optimization specialist at DDA has offered me many opportunities to do things beyond sitting behind my desk and optimizing websites. I have been a part of the DDA Medical website, which is a website with integrated flash video segments. I am a part of the Target Your Keywords animated game that is on the DDA Corporate website. I have been in a few brochures and catalogs as well as the previously mentioned billboard advertisements.

Working for a digital advertising agency that also specializes in website design with flash integration, animated games, brochure and catalog design and billboard design can certainly have its perks.