Back in 2009 when the world was beginning to train its collective eye on our city for the upcoming Vancouver 2010 Olympics, local company Dan-D-Pak made a decision to erect a billboard on Main Street that brought quite a few laughs, and likely an equal amount of side-eyes.
Mostly known for their packaged nuts, which you can still buy in every corner of B.C., the billboard said "Grab our Nuts," with an eight-foot-tall photo of a person's hand holding a 275mg container of Dan-D-Pak Fancy Nut Mix.
This was pre #metoo, when there wasn't much of a risk for brands who decided to use borderline vulgar jokes about being goosed in their marketing, but it still delivered a jolt.
What was equally shocking was the fact that this seemingly innocent snack brand was not known for clever campaigns and just came out of left field with a ball-grabbing joke. On a gigantic billboard in the middle of the province's largest city, no less.
Today I'd like to go on the record saying that this might have been the best Vancouver billboard of all time. Not because of the grabbing pun (I've give it a 2/10 on the Dad Joke scale) but because it came out of nowhere - "best" here could be interchanged with "noteworthy."
At the time it went up I thought it was so ridiculous that they used a double entendre on a gigantic billboard that I shot a photo and tucked it away in my folder of archival images that I knew I might draw upon someday in the future. Every few years when I go looking through my files I stumble upon it and my eyes get wide again.
Today was one of those days and, now almost 14 years later, I feel obligated to present to you this image of a billboard that shows somebody grabbing Dan-D-Pak's... excellent and satisfying local product.
Enjoy your snack.
