Sticker Slap Champions Part 1

over 2 years ago

What makes a Stickers Slap Champion to you?
Sure, it could be a person, but this is more about the sticker design and placement. When I use the word champion, I’m referring to the sticker itself. For me, the word “champion” implies a measurement of duration as an indicator of success.

Criteria, Believe It Or Not
How long does your sticker stay up for?
How long does it take a cleaning person to remove your sticker from a bathroom?
How long does it take the city to remove your sticker from the back of a street sign?
How noticeable is your sticker? Is it camouflaged, yet noticeable to your target audience?
Do you want your sticker to blend in with its background?
Is your sticker bold and ready to go out in a blaze of glory? Sticker wanna ride a blade of steel? 🪒

It might sound like I’m defining the sticker slap phenomenon, but that’s purely accidental. In my humble opinion, sticker slapping is the act of finding a location to put a sticker. I don’t know what the rest of the Internet would refer to as a champion or a successful Stickers lab, but for me it’s something that supplements, the environment and refrains from disruption. A successful sticker slap gives someone something unexpected to entertain their eyeballs.

Let’s take a look at what I consider contenders for champion status.

These are stickers that have been in my environment in front of my face the whole time without me noticing.

"Ohana Grip" Sticker

This first one is located... oh you tell me. Do you know this spot? See any secret fishing spots. Not quite Naples.
:)

This sticker is an example of a piece that blends-in with it's background. Looks like a white sticker, I don't see signs of color fade. It's not easy to see it from the side walk. I've seen the small imperfection in the sign many many many many many many times, but I've never actually walked up to see what it was. I thought it was a ripped or damaged sticker for a long time. I had no idea the image was complete and legible.

Where are all the other stickers?
I can't believe this is the only sticker on this sign. It's easy to put a sticker here. Usually one sticker creates a snowball affect. Other sticker usually appear after one has "broken the ice."

Is that Fred Astaire? Looks like a dancer from A Chorus Line on top of a skateboard. Nope not A Chorus Line, they didn't have derby hats. I'm not sure where I recognize that dancer from. Is that dancer wearing pajamas? Is that Chaplin?

Help us out. Who is that? Leave a comment if you know.

I'll look up "Ohana Grip" and trust it's nothing nasty like "bowling ball grip."

brb...

This was the most convincing connection I could find: https://ohanaboards.net/. Other than that, I didn't see much of a connection for this sticker.
I'm surprised. Maybe this is an old sticker and part of an abandoned marketing strategy? Copy-write issues with the image? Hard to say, the area is not busy with shoppers and consumers, it's more like a sidewalk next to a large dock. Yet, there has been more traffic recently. Foot traffic because of concerts, cruise ships, and race cars. This sticker might have been slapped by one of the many event's attendees.

WTF is a "GULER LURST"?

This is another sticker i've walked past many times. Today was the first time I notice it and realized it wasn't part of the metal boxes manufacturing stickers.

See what tricked me? Look at the sticker on the side, to the right of our main subject. "Calsense" sticker with water drop, right? California water company or public utility manufacturer? Not sure yet, but that was the decoy for my brain. I assumed all the stickers on this stainless steel box were related to the utility. Yeah, found them: https://www.calsense.com/. They made that water, evaporator, moisture box thingy for dogs to pee on.

Then I noticed the odd location of the sticker... a holographic sticker. Doesn't look like a good spot unless you want to stick out. Also, why the hell would a utility company spend the money on a holographic sticker?

"Wait a minute! What is that word? Hey!"

Then I noticed the small crown on top of the letter "L." What is this cryptic element!??!

HA!!! WTF!!!
SOMEONE ELSE THOUGHT THEY WOULD BE SLICK BY PLACING A HOLOGRAPHIC STICKER ON A SIMILAR REFLECTIVE SURFACE.
I #love this. I thought I was alone. They really got me. I bow to this sticker slapper. Sure, it's not my language, but still. Good times.

ALSO FUN with this sticker is the style. I've recently noticed a common sticker style similar to this. People put a little message in there sometimes. Most of the time it's a black sticker with white text that maximizes the surface area of the sticker. I've seen variations, but never a fully holographic version. This is the first design variation I've seen that matched my imagination's interpretation of the style.

I take a giant smelly guess...

All that and I still don't know what it says. Before I look, let's guess. I am now writing my best guess before researching. I think it's either related to weed/cannabis or related to one of the cruise ships. "Princess Crown" "Norwegian Crown" or "Norwegian Princess" or something cruise ship was here? I guess it reads, "travel obsession" or "royalty lust" or "kings desire?" Smoke blunts?
Okay, that last one is silly.

Now, I'll search for the word.

brb...

got anything?

"you speak chi-kneez?"

GULER LURST, brb...

And, it's...

Dang, I suck at this: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22GULER+LURST%22&t=brave&pn=1&ia=web

I see a cruise ship connection, but I also see an angler connection. Both are appropriate to the area.

I'll try a translator, but I wonder if one of those image searches would help.

Hmm, "Yellow Lust" is a clue. Sounds travel related, but why yellow? A context for a marketing theme? I got the, "LUST" part correct, but that's easy for horny people.

(I hope it's for Yellow Man.)
brb...

Nothing. I guess anything with "lust" is going to be a fun search, but nothing related to this sticker. Yellow cruise... I got nothing.
Wow, nothing I can make a solid connection with again.

Mmmelp?

NEXT!

Look forward to part 2 of this post. Part 2 will feature a few sad, muffed up, scuffed-up, upper-cutted, dropped kicked, atomic elbowed (@chinito), and painted over stickers. These next ones will not make the champion status when compared to these others. Maybe wicked misfits... but they got lots of ouch, so you decide next post. Look for part 2 to feature some casualties!