Monday, November 22, 2004

Not there too

Several of us from the same studio were eating dinner at the Ohio Star Ball when someone mentioned something I had already noticed - a number of the better male dancers were wearing fairly large labels on their jackets. I hadn't been close enough to read them, but it turned out that the labels were deliberate advertising by sponsors.

About that time the devil whispered in my ear. So I proposed that the ads go the whole NASCAR route, and invited them all to picture the dancers with big Skoal or Red Man ads on their backs.

You never heard a conversation stop so fast in your life. The looks of horror were priceless.

The fact is that competing at dancesport is expensive, and the prizes aren't exactly huge even for the top pros. The competitions aren't exactly money machines either from what I can tell, so any added money from sponsors or patrons is a huge help. A couple of common sponsors are Capezio and Chrisanne.

But really, there's something about an ad which clashes with formal wear. It makes the dancers look like they're part of the hotel staff. Surely we can do better than this.

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