Patinkin: Weird works in 2023, and that's why I'm giving RI's giant stuffies a chance
I’m writing this column from under my desk.
Because I’m about to weigh in on a controversial issue.
More contentious than gun control, abortion or Donald Trump.
Here goes.
The giant ones Rhode Island tourism is deploying at national airports. You know – those 7-foot fiberglass displays of minced clams, spices and breadcrumbs on a shell.
I like it.
I think I’m the only one.
People have been losing their minds over this, partly because the campaign will cost $4.5 million, with the gigantic stuffies about to be displayed first in LA, Detroit, Atlanta and Baltimore, all of which have direct routes to T.F. Green.
The campaign has drawn an avalanche of pushback.
“So damn stupid,” wrote a commenter named Tom Mulvey on The Journal’s Facebook post about it.
“So embarrassing!!” added Mary Ann Sculley Bonin.
Keith Elliott called it “a strange looking blob on a plate.”
And Mike Deniger made a widely held point: “Who is going to look at that and say wow, a stuffed clam. Let me go to Rhode Island. I bet 3/4 won’t know what it is.”
That’s why I’m under my desk as I prepare to defend it.
First, I feel bad for the R.I. tourism people. A few years ago, they were beat up for their marketing slogan “Cooler & Warmer.” Now this. Poor folks can't catch a break.
Well, darn it, this time, I'm giving them applause.
For one main reason.
They’re doing what marketing people need to do in 2023.
Try something weird.
That’s the only way to get attention.
The traditional path to selling Rhode Island would be posters of coastlines and cobblestones. Except things like that are a dime a dozen. Nobody walking through an airport is going to stop for that. Like, nobody.
But they might pause to check out a ginormous fiberglass stuffed clam. Especially since it features a red 8-foot-tall bottle of hot sauce next to it.
That’s weird enough to stand out – and maybe even make people look up from their phones.
To their credit, our tourism folks will staff the stuffies. So when someone stops to ask if it’s a movie about mashed potatoes from Neptune invading planet Earth, they’ll be able to pitch the state more traditionally.
It would have been easy, and safe, to have just rolled out posters of beaches. Nobody would have beaten them up over that. But our tourism people had the gumption to – forgive me – stick their necks out, because they realize that weird works.
Stuffie-style: Reveal of the airport Rhode Island 'stuffie' tourism installations
Case in point: the 2020 Democratic National Convention vote roll call. Because of the pandemic, delegations declared by video, with tediously predictable state backdrops.
But us?
State party chairman Joe McNamara planted himself on Oakland Beach extolling the virtues of Rhode Island’s official appetizer.
He declared: “The calamari comeback state casts 34 votes for the next president of the United States – Joe Biden.”
With a good visual in mind, McNamara set up Iggy’s Boardwalk executive chef John Bordieri holding up a huge plate of it. Because of his black chef’s uniform, Bordieri was dubbed “The Calamari Ninja.”
People here piled on that, too, because RI voters are a tough crowd when public officials try something goofy.
But it worked. The shtick led to Rhode Island stealing the show. No one talked about any other state's declaration, yet Joe's calamari thing went viral and put us on the map.
I’m guessing the stuffies could, too, with local news or social media doing stories and posts on what the heck is that giant blob in the airport? That's a marketing home run – generating buzz. It might even start something, with Philly putting 7-foot Styrofoam cheesesteaks and Arkansas colossal fried pickles at Green, and I guarantee if they did that I'd write about it – which I wouldn't do if they just displayed scenic posters, no chance.
All right – feel free to start shooting at me now.
But as I write this under my desk, lifting my helmet on my pen above the foxhole, I’ll say it again.
In 2023, weird works, and I think the giant stuffies will, too.
mpatinki@providencejournal.com
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: RI stuffie display in airports might just be weird enough to work
