The Eye of the Fish has got it’s interest piqued, by an advertising campaign on in Wellington at present. For the last few weeks, there have been a series of eyeballs rolling around on Phantom Billstickers billboards, with no clues or explanations what they refer to. A series of eyes, sometimes two eyes, sometimes a string of four, staring in different directions. Someone obviously wants us to look at something. But what?
“Now you see me” – to which the reposte is clearly: now you don’t. But still no clearer. Does the yellow and black refer to The Hurricanes? The Phoenix? Wellington City Council? What am I meant to be looking for? What are you looking at?
Is it an advert for us to look at the stars in a different way, with the advent of Matariki? Did that go awry when Matariki manifested itself via the medium of a whale? Of course, you know that the word Leviathan most often refers to a large sea creature from the ocean deep, don’t you? A whale, in other words?
Picture of our Wellington whale at Matariki, snapped by Von Lampard – all credits to him.
Or is it a teaser campaign to get us used to maori words – as we head towards being a bilingual city, at long last? Just last night I spotted the same images had changed their words – one said “kanohi” and the other said “kitea”. With the name of this blog being The Eye of the Fish – aka – Te Kanohi o te Ika, we can tell one word quite easily. And the other? Well, you’ll just have too find out.
Here’s my current theory: that it is a teaser campaign by GWRC, to get us ready for the big bus changes tomorrow. I guess we’ll find out tomorrow, perhaps, if the big ugly yellow-fronted buses start sporting a big pair of googly eyes on their nose. But that would imply that GWRC had both a sense of graphic design, and a sense of humour, both of which seem to be sadly lacking.
So: what’s your theory?
A campaign to get pedestrians to look both ways before crossing the road perhaps?
Or a campaign to get cyclists to wear clothes soand lights so they can be seen ?
As the corollary would be “Now You Don’t!”, perhaps the GWRC has hired David Copperfield to make the hills between Petone and Tawa disappear.
Just checked this morning – hills still there, so its not that.
Also – no sign of eyes on buses on Sunday either, so probably not that. Very odd. Any other theories?
Self promotion by phantom to get more people using their services?
Nice try 60 – but I think that Alan takes the cake actually – apparently it is part of a WCC campaign to get pedestrians to look where they are going. Perhaps it would be just as easy to allow you to slap people who text while walking, and unconsciously veer onto the roadways. Seems to happen more and more each day. Noses out of screens Peoples!
Yip, have started to see them popping up on curbs, (essentially replacing the “look right look left” stencils that have become faded
The billboards and paving posters have now changed language: “Kanohi Kitea”. Spotted in Dunlop Terrace and Taranaki & Vivian Street.