My friend WG sent me this clever bit of viral marketing from JC Penney, and because I insist on reading all text I encounter I rolled the video back to the document that gets stamped at 3:54*. Rather than something wacky, made up, and relevant to the video, it is in fact the crystal-clear text of a real Oklahoma State court case regarding excessive campaign contributions (research time: ten seconds).

Huh. So why that document? Is somebody pissed off at the defendant and sneaking a smear into the video? Seems unlikely — it looks more like the kind of thing you might pull out of a recycling bin if you were trying to make an official-looking prop file. And hey there, look at that — JC Penney’s corporate headquarters are in Plano, Texas, less than one hundred miles south of Oklahoma (research time: fifteen seconds). I wonder which production company shot the video, and where?

A couple minutes of Googling later: the agency is Saatchi and Saatchi (global), and the production company Hungry Man (LA, NY, Rio, London). The location of the shoot is still a mystery, though, as is how the doc got in there.

Oh, and I suppose court documents are a matter of public record, but geez, Oklahoma Office the Attorney General, do you really want driver’s license numbers and signatures out there where anyone with curiosity, Google, and a spare minute can find them? I see a login link in the site template’s footer…maybe scanned case docs should be on the other side of that.

*The text at 3:55 is worth reading, too: the seal on the dock says, ” Bring us your thoughtless, your selfish, your lame masses.”