I thought the discovery of the underwater billboards for Ivar's Clam Chowder was really cool. Turns out it was a well orchestrated hoax to sell chowder! Hey, it was a great marketing campaign. According to this morning's Seattle Times, Ivar's sold 83,000 cups of chowder in September 2009 compared to 19,000 cups in September 2008. That's a whole lot of chowder!! The whole thing started when a barnacle covered billboard was pulled out of the water near Alki Beach earlier this year. Apparently Ivar Haglund, who died 24 years ago was indeed quite a character and a great self-promoter. So the hoax was that he was so ahead of his time, that he predicted locals would be traveling by submarine around the Puget Sound area, thus the underwater billboards. Local historian, Paul Dorpat even got in on the fun, stating in The Times that he became part of the theatre in the spirit of Ivar Haglund.

I wish it had been real, or better yet, that I'd thought it up!