Picture people

Another forgotten post that sat in my journal...week of Mar.6 - Mar. 13

The Picture People (a portrait company) sent me a card for my son's first birthday that said, "You know what makes a party. The presents. The cakes. The giggles. The friends. But it's the memories that make it last. Now you can keep those moments forever with beautiful, professional photography that celebrates every birthday long after it has passed." And that's exactly how it was written.

This marketing attempt captivated me because, well, it worked. I wasn't thinking about having my son's portraits done at a studio before this card. I was just going to do them myself, but once I got this card I thought, Well I can't do them as good as they can. And they got all those cute props and backgrounds, and they do make a good point: the birthday can last forever with portraits...yada yada. What made this work so well, is the structural repetition that drove the image of a party into my head: "The presents. The cakes. The giggles." Then, they reminded me of how those all go away once the party is over, but memories, those last. And of course I wanted to keep my son's first birthday party going. Now that I saw professionals assuring me they could do that I wanted them to do it, no  longer trusting myself to do it. What if I don't get good enough pictures? They definitely will. So, it was a good marketing tool they used. Damn marketing people's rhetoric, making me spend money.

Presents, cakes, giggles and friends all disappear once the party is over, but memories last and pictures can capture those memories, letting the party live on through time.

In my imitation, I wanted to out-and-out say what they were saying, but still make the same point that convinced me.