It's RiDQulous

I have a tendency to over-think advertising, be it billboards, commercials, sky writing, whatever (I thought I wrote another piece on advertising, but I think I've just talked about it so much that I assumed I wrote it. Maybe in the future). So when I went in to a local Dairy Queen -- probably the first Dairy Queen I've been in in at least ten years -- and saw their absolutely riDQulous add campaign, I could actually feel my mind spasm. I don't currently have cable, so if what I saw replaced the Rocky Horror lips in Dairy Queen's ads a while ago, I apologize for not being up to date.

There was a poster very much like the following:

Now, don't get me wrong, any effort to try to emphasize the "D" and "Q" in ridiculous is just that. However, they chose the absolute worst way to do it. I can only imagine because they don't trust the public to "get it" in any other way.

Let's break it down...

-- As it stands, I'm inclined to pronounce it rid-kwuh-lus*.

-- I assume that they want it to be pronounced ri-dee-kyoo-lous.

--However, too be consistent in pronouncing the "D" and "Q" as letters, with their spelling it would be ri-dee-kyoo-yoo-lus. Or perhaps ri-dee-kyoo-oo-lus.

-- A better alternative would just be to spell it riDiQulous, but that's very problematic, though the "D" and "Q" still stand out.

-- What they should have done, since they seemed to be married to this absurd marketing campaign is this: RiDQlous. Maybe even Ri-DQ-lous. The "D" makes an imperfect second syllable ("dee" instead of "dih"), but at least it contains the proper pronunciations while separating the DQ, which is what they want.

However, the whole thing is so forced that they should have dropped the idea before pen hit paper. It's certainly no "I'm lovin' it" or "Just do it." Honestly, they never should have changed it from the subtly clever, "We treat you right." It makes me a little sad that someone got paid for this campaign...

*I'm no expert on spelling phonetically, so I hope the point comes across.