Put boots on your billboards

About a week ago my friend and I passed a fellow wearing a brightly lettered sandwich board to advertise a Union Board event. \n"Sure is a shame more people don't use sandwich boards these days," my friend commented.\nI realized it was impossible to disagree.\nWhat form of commercial media could possibly be more delightful and less imposing than the wearable sandwich board? \nMost advertising messages today are so far removed from the real messenger that they are essentially meaningless. The billboards that clutter the highway, the commercials that attack what's left of good TV, the internet banners that shamelessly fling themselves across our inboxes and illegal mP3 devices -- none of them actually wear the face of their sponsors -- they merely dangle by an umbilical cord of money. \nNot so with the sandwich board. \nIf the message you're touting is so important that you'll paste it in on a three-foot piece of plywood and haul it around yourself, well then, I just might pay attention. Attaching a person to your announcement symbolizes a commitment to it. Partly because the head that hovers above the board has nothing to hide behind, so it had better believe what it's smashed between. And also because a person, be it yourself or a paid employee, is quite a resource. You wouldn't waste an entire person on one little piece of news unless it was something you were dedicated to.\nThink about the bigwigs behind the companies that spam you. Sure, they'll stick a crude comment about a lacking body part in your subject line, but would they stand in Times Square with it posted on their chest? Probably not.\nThink about famous spokespeople. You might be able to pay Kelly Ripa to toss her hair around and gush over Pantene, but would she stand in a life-size bottle and ring a bell on the street? I doubt it.\nThere is a history to the effectiveness of the sandwich board. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the device has been employed since 19th century London when merchants hired men to carry placards that advertised their goods to people on the streets. It was Charles Dickens who first coined these early communicators "sandwich men." Sandwich boards reappeared later during the Depression, when businesses couldn't afford more expensive forms of advertisement. Today, they are still used to advertise locally and generate publicity.\nI would trust anything with that kind of staying power. And I'd sure as hell trust Charles Dickens. \nSandwich board announcements would bring a welcome change to campus promotions. They don't create litter and wash away in the rain like other methods do. If every group replaced their four hundred fliers and thirty-seven sidewalk chalk scrawls with one good sandwich board courier, everybody would win. They'd get twice the effectiveness for a fourth of the effort, and we'd get a more pleasant communication experience. \nIn 1964, Marshall McLuhan poignantly declared that "the medium is the message." Think of what this means for sandwich boards. You are the medium. You are the message. What tool could possibly be more powerful for exercising the First Amendment? \nIf you're not wearing a sandwich board, you may be flaking out on your constitutional rights.\nMuch praise to Union Board for paving the way in sandwich board reintroduction. I know you were only trying to promote an event, but in doing so you have also promoted so much more: our nation's history, our rights to free speech, a commitment to the truth and a faith in Charles Dickens. You love America, so you opted for the wearable sandwich board. I hope other groups will soon follow suit.