The half-hearted clowns advertising discount roses, furniture sales, condo sales, and used car lots. Shedding bears and floppy eared dogs try to draw crowds to community fairs … They don’t have the moves to compete with the sign spinners featured in the Los Angeles Times today.

And like any niche industry trying to bootstrap into respectability, these guerrilla marketers come traffic cops are pushing a new name for the profession: “human directionals.” (wikipedia or myspace)

Not to say there isn’t hard work and natural skill involved.

“… Local spinners have cooked up hundreds of moves. There’s the Helicopter, in which a spinner does a backbend on one hand while spinning a sign above his head. In the Blender, a spinner twirls the sign behind his back. Spanking the Horse gets the most attention. The spinner puts the sign between his legs, slaps his own behind and giddy-ups. …

Aarrow keeps dozens of moves in a “trick-tionary,” which only a handful of people have seen, said co-founder Mike Kenny. The company records spinners’ movements and sends them in batches to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. “We have to take our intellectual property pretty seriously,” he said …

The outdoor advertising industry still does not recognize sign spinning as a bona fide way of reaching consumers, much less an art form. It regards spinning as a form of guerrilla marketing that commercializes public space. “(LATimes)

Aarrow’s Devin Wade even knows the “infamous Bruce Lee” move. San Diego magazine said “Wade and his ilk are the consumer street division of Cirque du Soleil.”

“… “Traditional forms of advertising have decreased in effectiveness,” says Aarrow CEO Max Durovic. He ticks off old-media mainstays: radio jingles, billboards, TV commercials. “Today, you can’t reach the consumer like that. But if I can make eye contact with someone, and make that human spinteraction, it allows us to create a one-on-one advertising experience. For that split second, that ad is personalized for you.” (Las Vegas City Life)

Youtube has a video of Aarrow’s founders spinning and discussing the company’s origins.

And here’s a video of some sign spinning in Vegas.

And an NPR story on “human directionals.”

Wonder how much spinners make? One company has advertised on Craigslist and the rate is cited as $10 - $20 an hour. Some good spinners, though, can make up to $60 an hour.

Did anyone see the sign spinner on an episode of NCIS earlier this year? He was mercilessly mocked by the NCIS team. I wonder how much he made for that appearance…

Technorati Tags: , , , ,