This is classic. A recent ad created by Memphis advertising agency Chandler Ehrlich touted the great mountain biking available in Tennessee. And, honestly, there is quite a bit. The problem was the sizzle they used to sell the steak…

Turns out that during the Fall, many of the leaves fall off the trees in Tennessee. (It sucks, it happens here in Indiana, too.) So by the time the concept got approved, the photo would have been less than appealing. Two choices (well, I think they had other choices, but they apparently thought they had two): Either scrap the ad or find a stock photo. (I think “alter the ad or find an appropriate photo… perhaps taken by a mountain biker in the state of Tennessee”, but I digress.)

What they did, instead, was buy a stock photo. Of a mountain biker. In Alaska. And then they ran the ad across the country in some fairly major publications like Outside Magazine and Travel + Leisure, where it just so happens that a reader recognized the photo and realized that it uh… wasn’t the Smokies.

[Read a great account of the full story]

(Photo by Erik Hill/Anchorage Daily News)