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Wow, did they ever fool me

A fake ad contest in the World of Westchase magazine has more than a few readers doing a double ake.

By STEPHANIE HAYES
Published October 14, 2005

WESTCHASE - It was a series of unfortunate blond moments.

Leafing through the World of Westchase community magazine one morning, I stopped at a full color photo of a man wearing a wool trench coat, a fur-trimmed women's hat and sneakers, holding golf clubs, standing in a grassy knoll.

"Bolt Blockers," it read. "The golf apparel that repels lightning. Block that shock . . . and look your very best."

"What a weird business," I thought. "Someone should write a story about that."

Never once pausing to consider the scientific reality of this concept, I Googled the ad's phone number. The Tampa Bay Lightning ticketing office.

More confused than ever (hey, it was early), I called WOW's editor, Chris Barrett, intent to learn how a trench coat-wearing prankster got an ad into the glossy monthly.

He started to crack up. Uh-oh.

"Turn to Page 52," Barrett instructed.

Page 52 explained the WOW's monthly fake ad contest. Readers try to spot the faker and then mail their guesses to Barrett.

Barrett draws one of the names, and that person gets a gift card to the Outback Steakhouse on Sheldon Road.

"Half the fun is doing the ad and half the fun is reading the responses and writing the followup article," Barrett said. "Some of the residents can be funnier than the ad."

Barrett, who started the contest 21/2 years ago, said he and his brother Brendan Barrett (the trench coat model, turns out) and Brendan's wife, Monica, who gave Barrett the idea for the contest, dream up the ads.

I wasn't the only duped dummy out there, Barrett told me in kinder terms.

"You pick up a magazine and there's a basic trust in the printed word, which is actually pretty frightening," Barrett said.

"It's a lot easier to understand how George Orwell spooked people out with the War of the Worlds thing."

A fake ad for "The Potty Goddie" featured a berserk toddler with a training seat on his head. It touted a training program that combined electroshock therapy with food and liquid deprivation.

One of Barrett's favorite reader reactions came from that ad.

"She was very concerned that we would actually run such an ad," he said. "She said, "I called the person, and he sounded like a predator.' I laughed and said, "That's my brother's cell.' "

Barrett got even more calls when the WOW ran a full page ad for an accountant named "Dewey Chatem and Associates," based on a joke from the National Public Radio show Car Talk.

Chatem would show you how to name your spouse as your favorite charity and list stuffed animals as dependents, it said.

"We got three or four phone calls from people who wanted to hire this fictitious CPA firm," Barrett said. "My goodness, they would have wound up in jail."

While the contest is done in fun, it has a definite appeal to advertisers. The fake ad is nestled into the issue in different spots each month. A reader has to look at almost each ad to find the imposter.

"We do think it gives some value to the advertiser because people do look for them," WOW publisher John Byrne said. WOW subsists solely on advertising revenues.

Even Byrne has been fooled.

When he started as publisher last summer, Byrne went through an issue to find contact information for each advertiser. For one ad, he couldn't find legit info.

"In the midst of starting to write an e-mail to (Barrett), I finally realized it was the fake ad," he said.

Maybe it was early for Byrne, too.

- If you have news about Westchase, contact Stephanie Hayes at 813-269-5303 or shayes@sptimes.com

[Last modified October 13, 2005, 08:20:12]