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  • 26-APR-2025 | Tom McElligott’s “Graffiti” Ad for Minnesota Tourism

26-APR-2025 | Tom McElligott’s “Graffiti” Ad for Minnesota Tourism

Author

Dan Bogachek
April 26, 2025

You glance at your watch.

It’s 6:28. You’ve been at it since 3.
Crap. Your hot date is at 7. Running late. Sink shower it is.
Nowhere close to done editing…

“…at least all the ideas are laid out, so there’s that. Did I miss anything? I don’t think so? Ok, but how do I make it flow? I need to get the final draft to Stacey for design asap, team cutoff is at noon Thursday…”

You’ve spent dinner completely distracted. Your date just took off. You go home exhausted, plod to your desk, and flip open the laptop.

Or… what if:

5:41 — you’re out of the shower and lip-syncing.
6:17 — dressed to the nines and zenned out.
7:03 — the sunset glints off your aviators as you smile hello.
8:36 — it actually feels like you’re hitting it off. Not just hot, funny to boot.
Next morning, 9:27 — final draft ready in your inbox.
10:31 — Stacey messages back, “thanks, looks good!”

The difference?

Copygloss handled it. Before you left for the date, actually.

For help with editing, email Dan:
[email protected].

Tom McElligott’s “Graffiti” Ad for Minnesota Tourism

In Minnesota we have graffiti, too.
It just happens to be 800 years old.

Everywhere you go in Minnesota art surrounds you.

You can find it among the half-hidden caves and waterways where Sioux and other tribes left it hundreds of years ago.

You find it in stunning sunsets filtered through pine trees towering high into the sky.

You find it in a deer that darts through the bush, a fish that leaps splashing from the water, a loon that breaks the misty morning silence with its eerie call.

You find it in the lush parks, tree-shaded boulevards, and exquisite malls of Minnesota cities.

You find it in the wide variety of professional and amateur theater, music, and dance throughout Minnesota.

And, of course, you find it in fine museums which Minnesotans have filled with art objects from Minnesota and around the world.

Art. It’s all there waiting for you in Minnesota. Enough to fill a lifetime of vacations.

Indoors or outdoors. 🏁 

This ad is built on repetition. And remember:
Repetition legitimizes. Repetition legitimizes. Repetition legitimizes.

The recurring piece: “You find it…”

That’s a metric butt-ton of “you.”

We take all of that “you” and we start painting. With everything written from your perspective, these scenes unfold in your imagination as you read along. (Unless you’re the small percentage of the population with aphantasia.)

It’s a future visualization exercise — a mild form of guided fantasy.

To round us off, the call to action lives in the mailing form. If you liked what you just pictured, you’re probably curious to learn more, and it’s free to boot (remember also — this is pre-Internet!).