Trying to do something

The clock has struck 3, and my celebratory bag of chips-- the culmination of my late-night studying reward system-- has already lost its flavour. At this time of night, the day's thoughts come flooding back, in a predictably haphazard way. I'm recalling an ad I saw in the bus this morning. Above passengers' bobbing heads, I could make out two choices with corresponding empty boxes beside them:

• Do something
  
• Do nothing
  

The rest of the space portrayed a homeless man sleeping on a sidewalk. And then, at the bottom, a smirky enticement to visit dosomething.ca. Or at least that's what I remember. Searching for it now leads me to nothing.

My instinctual reaction at seeing the ad was rage. It seemed as though the homeless man was being portrayed as "doing nothing," himself to blame for his condition. But now that I think about it, the ad could have been encouraging us, the 43 University bus-riding folk, to do something to help this man, and his fellows, out.

Why do ads today have to be so vague? I give no style points for an unclear product, audience, and marketer. Not to mention a dazed kid looking up the URL, and finding out it doesn't exist! That's too much energy spent on a glossy, rectangular piece of cardboard.