Chapel Hill and Wells Fargo adding insult to injury

Submitted by James on Wed, 11/02/2011 - 5:08pm

Way back when I was in the advertising business, I probably would have been excited to have a client who wanted to do something innovative, something like transit ads on buses in a town that's very hard to penetrate in terms of media. When you work in an ad agency, you develop real enthusiasm for the clients you support, and to some extent, you become a cheerleader for their brand.

So while I understand the desire on the part of Wells Fargo to celebrate its acquisition of Wachovia by wrapping Chapel Hill buses with their logo, there's something about the move this week that is both offensive and tone deaf.

The takeover of Wachovia by Wells Fargo is a classic deal designed to deliver operating synergies and market share. That's a euphemism for cutting costs by laying off people, while gaining a foothold in a new territory. The only beneficiaries are Wachovia shareholders. Not Wachovia customers or employees, and certainly not the community at large.

Not a single person I know wants Wells Fargo in Chapel Hill. Not a single person I know wants to see the Wells Fargo brand parading up and down Chapel Hill streets.

I saw my first "wrapped" bus today as I pedaled home near the end of a ten-mile bike ride. It made me want to puke.

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The Town of Chapel Hill is, of course, complicit in the scheme because of its recent decision to offer bus ads as a way to generate revenue. The town could get as much as $400,000 a year for selling its soul to commercial interests.

That makes me want to puke, too.

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Not only that.. the logo is about a thousand years old!

Submitted by KatyMunger on Wed, 11/02/2011 - 6:06pm.

Whoever has been making the decision within Wells Fargo not to refresh their logo is insane -- good lord, there is nothing attractive or even memorable about that ancient logo. It just makes them looks ponderous and outdated. Not to mention, the only thing stage coaches remind me of is getting robbed and that's not exactly an ideal association for a bank in the first place. They had a perfect chance to update it and blew it. Had to have been deliberate, but good lord... must have been made by an ancient one.

Katy Munger,
Progress North Carolina
www.progressnc.org

Lead, follow or get out of the way....

Wells Fargo

Submitted by Richwah (not verified) on Wed, 11/02/2011 - 7:58pm.

I think the Wells Fargo logo and coloring are mean-looking and I hate to see it. But, so far, the bank's services haven't changed and the switchover was harmless. NOTE: So far!

Wells Fargo-infested buses

Submitted by Dave Connelly (not verified) on Fri, 12/09/2011 - 8:35pm.

I saw DATA buses in Durham this week with Wells Fargo colors (fast food red + fast food yellow). The bank's CEO should be strapped to the front bumper until he promises to remove these eyesores.

Agreed 100%

Submitted by James on Sat, 12/10/2011 - 12:35pm.

Chapel Hill has a very effective sign ordinance that prohibits this kind of daily insult ... except of course when it comes to its own damn buses.

Why we the people of North Carolina have to have our visual landscape assaulted by WF's hideous brand is beyond me.

Do good. Be nice. Have fun.

don't mind bus advertising

Submitted by TrueMeckDem on Sat, 12/10/2011 - 9:41pm.

I actually don't mind advertising on the sides of buses. Here in Mecklenburg the money goes directly to help pay for mass transit and keeps fares down.

Reposting my thoughts from

Submitted by Jake Gellar-Goad on Sat, 12/10/2011 - 10:37pm.

I'm reposting my thoughts from OP in October (responding to someone who said, among other things, we need the money to fund our free public transit):

http://orangepolitics.org/poll/2011/what-do-you-think-of-chapel-hi

That's a very good point

Perhaps diversifying the bus ad investors can keep any single one group from having too much say.

I also wonder if people would question whether that is a chapel hill bus and be hesistant to board it if they don't see any carolina blue or the words chapel hill transit.

I think I'd be more supportive of ads if they were large ads on the sides/back in spaces clearly designed to contain ads, but if the bus remained something that displayed some local carolina blue color so that it didn't feel like it was shifting away from college town feel towards a more corporate look. And if we made sure not to put all our eggs in one basket so that we wouldn't be financially stuck advertising a particular corporation. And I guess knowing more about the approval process would help too.

If we have a Wal Mart bus or an Art Pope Roses/Maxway bus or a Koch Brothers Americans for Prosperity bus going around Chapel Hill it's going to be a lot harder to proudly call myself a Chapel Hill resident. If I knew that there was an approval process to weed out the worst of the worst, I'd be more supportive of ads.