THEY DID THIS all over Redondo Beach when we lived there a good while ago and I thought it was so regional. and then I recently started seeing them do it in durham/chapel hill area for pizza places, neighborhoods, etc. Took that long for promotional strategies to reach the east coast?
"Or, consider the growing use of human directionals, which is what the advertising industry calls people who twirl signs outside restaurants, barbershops, and new real estate subdivisions. Southern California in particular has become a mecca for this new “sport” as locals cook up new moves to out-style their competitors. These include the Helicopter, in which a spinner does a backbend on one hand while he twirls a sign above his head. Then there’s the popular Spanking the Horse, where the human directional puts the advertising sign between his legs, slaps his own behind, and giddy-ups.[6]"
From my ad class e-text Launch! Advertising and Promotion in Real Time
