Out of place

So, a couple of weeks ago, the billboard on a building in view of our office changed. Previously it had been an adidas ad featuring Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood who, despite being without the familiar Cubs logo on his cap and jersey, was instantly recognizable to 99.9 percent of the people who saw the ad. (This is, after all, the North Side of Chicago.) It then changed to something generic for Ray-Ban (I think) that wasn't particularly memorable.

But then, as I mentioned, it changed again recently. It's another adidas ad in their "Impossible is nothing" campaign. (This campaign has featured the famous black-and-white photo of Muhammad Ali standing brazenly over a fallen Joe Frazier and, my favorite, a picture of English and Real Madrid midfielder David Beckham with the tagline "Impossible is nothing" printed above his groin -- this came out right before several allegations surfaced about Becks having cheated on wife Posh Spice, making it seem all the truer that, well, you know where this is going.)

Anyway, to attempt to get somewhere with this, the new billboard has a picture of German and Bayern München goalkeeper Oliver Kahn, with the text "Impossible can't appreciate 0-0."

Now, I know who Oliver "King" Kahn is. I know that he's an incredibly talented and equally insane keeper who very nearly carried Germany to a World Cup victory two summers ago. And I've seen his mug enough on the Guardian's Web site to know what he looks like (and to know what he looks like with his head Photoshopped on King Kong's body).

But it's safe to say I'm in a relative minority here. At least, as far as the people who are likely to see this billboard go. Because the picture just shows Kahn, in typically King Kahn facial contortions, from the torso up. You can just barely start to make out the top of the T-Mobile ad plastered on his chest, but only barely. And if you didn't know that T-Mobile was the uni sponsor for Bayern, or weren't intimately aware with the T-Mobe logo that you could recognize it just by seeing a small portion, you wouldn't know. Admittedly, you can also see the small Bayern logo at the upper corner of his torso, but even that is difficult to make out unless you go looking for it, as I did.

This ad doesn't face the El, so it's not like a lot of people, especially soccer-savvy minorities and immigrants, are likely to pass by it. In fact, it appears really just to be visible from a very small cluster of office buildings and condos that happens to include where I work. I'm willing to guess that in the two weeks this ad has been up maybe a half-dozen folks, myself included, have seen it and recognized the person on it.

All of which is to say, this seems like it's an especially ineffective ad. Unless adidas really, really is trying to target me specifically. In which case, they could've done far better and saved a lot more money had they simply given me tickets to today's match between Bayern and Manchester United at Soldier Field in Chicago, where I could've actually seen Kahn in the flesh.