'Auckland A' is the worst
idea to ever rear it's head out of the
Saatchi & Saatchi building.
It seems that Auckland city council was unhappy with the current slogan 'The
city of sails', and hired the advertising agency to come up with a new one.
And so 'Auckland A' was born, along with a hand signal (make an A shape out of your hands by touching your fingertips together and using your thumbs for the cross bit). The idea was (apparently) a play on the way Aucklanders (and New Zealanders in general) add "Ay" to the end of most sentences.
The problem however, was in the hand signal. The
clever people at Saatchi & Saatchi thought it would be a good idea to increase the sence of
community in Auckland by creating a hand signal for us to greet each other with...
Except someone didn't do much
research.
Depending on who you are around in the
deaf/
mute community, the Auckland 'A' sign already has one or two meanings, two of which are
AIDS, and
vagina.
Since these facts were revealed, there has been little progress made on the project, which is probably for the best.