A woman in a red bikini has been taunting people at Randolph and Jefferson.
The shapely two-dimensional blond is spread across a two-story billboard, sipping a cocktail, laid out on a chaise lounge. She is barefoot. Her flip flops, 400 pounds each, lie atop two crushed cars in the parking lot below.
The Arizona Office of Tourism couldn’t have known that their latest advertising campaign to lure Chicagoans west would overlap with the coldest temperatures Chicagoans have seen in decades. But they’re not complaining about the timing.
“We’re just inviting everyone, if they have the opportunity, to come to Arizona and warm up a little bit,” said Karen Cahn, ad director for the state.
Passersby have been snapping cell phone pics of the billboard during the extreme cold, said Cahn, who noted that in 2012, 600,000 vacationers from Illinois visited Arizona.