Rutgers football is starting the season 1-0…at least in terms of advertising along the Jersey Shore.
For several years, the football program has taken advantage of moments throughout the calendar, such as Independence Day, to target the hundreds of thousands of people who trek to the beach shore over the holiday. It isn’t common to see crowds stop and stare every few minutes to see the airplanes roll by with their advertisements in tow.
Some try to entice you with a discount to get you in a restaurant. Some simply remind you to call Gold Medal Plumbing the next time you’ve got a leaky faucet. And some, like the Rutgers football ad, hit gold by making fun of something unique to the area.
Just like we call it the shore (and never the beach), a south Jersey thing is to say ‘wooder’ and not ‘wah-ter.’ It is not as hotly debated as pork roll versus the wrong way to call it. But it is important to many of us from this state.
It is a jawn thing. And if you’re not familiar with ‘wooder’ or ‘jawn’ then you have no place here.
(Seriously, just use Google. Or Altavista. It is 2023 people)
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All of which makes this bit of local dialogue very much worth a chuckle and something that should resonate with fans. After all, the idea of the ad isn’t to sell tickets necessarily – it is to brand Rutgers football to being uniquely Jersey.
So what better way than to tap into a regional accent? Clever stuff for sure.
This is hilarious 🎯 — @RFootball know their audience. The WOODER is great out here today, thanks so much for asking 🫡🌊 pic.twitter.com/yUbh2rZAYk
— Christine Cupo (@CCupo) July 3, 2023
Which leads to the even bigger question of them all: Greg Schiano…how does he order his Italian ‘Wooder’ Water Ice?
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