Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2002 | 11:15 a.m.
To Linda Ley, who manages Clark County's Court Appointed Special Advocate's office, there's no such thing as an ugly kid.
But yet, there they are, towering over streets and highways, on billboards thousands of Las Vegans have seen.
Ugly Kids.
That's all the sign says in between computer-altered images of two facially challenged pre-teens.
Ley, whose office serves as an advocate for children in need of foster care or adoption, said the timing of the placement of the billboards is bizarre because November is National Adoption Month.
"We work so hard because we believe that every kid deserves a home, no matter who they are, what they look like or what their circumstances are," Ley said. "There are no ugly kids. I don't think that 'kids' and 'ugly' belong in the same sentence."
So who thinks that it does?
Jodi Gutstein, marketing director for the Las Vegas office of Clear Channel Outdoor, won't say.
She said the nine billboards that were put up Oct. 15 in an exclusive contract with Clear Channel were placed by a client who wishes to remain anonymous.
"It's a teaser campaign," Gutstein said. "In a couple of weeks new copy will go up that will explain it."
In the meantime Gutstein said she has received several telephone calls, half of them from people who were confused and wanted to know more about the campaign and half from people who were angry and saw the message the way Ley saw it.
One critic went to the extreme of defacing one of the billboards. In a sign near McCarran International Airport, someone added the phrase "in an ugly world" beneath the Ugly Kids. Gutstein confirmed the phrase is not a part of the promotion.
Gutstein said when she receives a critical phone call, she logs it and passes it along to her client.
"I take the concerns and comments very seriously and pass them on to the advertiser," Gutstein said.
She said the billboards weren't meant to offend the causes of children's advocates.
So who is the mystery advertiser? Some clues have emerged from Minneapolis, where a similar Ugly Kids campaign was staged in the summer.
There, Clear Channel Outdoor was the billboard purveyor and the client turned out to be Clear Channel's sister radio station company, which owns KDWB-FM radio in Minneapolis. Clear Channel also owns four radio stations in the Las Vegas market.
The images of the Ugly Kids in Minneapolis turned out to be digitally altered photographs of two radio station personalities when they were younger. Gutstein wouldn't say who the children are in the Las Vegas billboards.
When Ley was told the Ugly Kids promotion was a likely radio station promotion, she was relieved.
"The timing was just bad on this," Ley said. "We have an adoption fair at Family Court on Friday and another at the Clark County government center on Saturday."
She explained that the adoption fair is an opportunity for persons who have adopted children or served as foster parents to give firsthand information to people who are considering those roles.
She said about 70 children, ranging in age from a couple of months to 18 years, are awaiting adoption in Clark County and the kickoff of National Adoption Month is an opportunity for people to learn more about it.
Advertising experts at R&R Partners who have seen the billboards said they suspected the signs were a radio station stunt. Despite the complaints, they say the campaign was a success because it generated emotional responses and got people talking.
archive
