The Strangest Thing

Originally published on January 6, 2010.

This is a TomTom GPS system.  It’s the picture that shows up in in any TomTom advertising.  It’s on the TomTom site, the Amazon site, the buy.com site.  Anywhere the TomTom is sold, you’ll see this image.

What’s so strange about it? 

Well, if the driver of the car using this TomTom were to turn left on West Broadway and drive just past the first street (which is Warren Street), he could double park in front of my store and run in to buy a bottle of something.  (In real life, he would probably ask if he could park there, or where the World Trade Center is, but this is an imagary TomTom situation, so he’s actually running in to buy wine.)

It’s strange that of all the places they could have used on their screen shot, they chose this little corner of Tribeca.  Actually, I think the screen shot used to show Warren between West Broadway and Murray which was even stranger….and even closer to the store.  At least Chambers Street is a main east-west artery.

Actually, the imaginary car in the current ad would be right in front of Chambers Street Wines.  Perhaps they know someone at TomTom that I should now?