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At the end of June 2006, a new blog entitled That Girl Emily appeared at thatgirlemily.blogspot.com. Ostensibly the musings of a married, 35-year-old New Jersey realtor named Emily, the blog for the first few weeks reported what might be read as the ordinary musings of a suburban professional woman: details of a recent vacation with her husband (Steven, a financial consultant), frustrations she experienced in pilates class, her husband's slow climb up the corporate ladder, and (after prompting by her sister) a discussion of her declining sex life. The blog then took a sudden left turn when Emily's brother convinced her to hire a private investigator (PI) to spy on her husband — a suggestion which Emily promptly accepted, implemented, and concluded in short order, finding out in the process (Quelle surprise!) that her husband was carrying on an expensive affair with her best friend, Laura. Emily spent the next few weeks venting her anger at her lying, cheating husband in her blog, including divulging information about various revenge schemes she had enacted to get back at Steven, starting with the billboard pictured here: Many readers who had been following Emily's blog already suspected that something wasn't quite on the level, and their suspicions were confirmed when billboards with text identical to the one pictured above (Hi Steven, Do I have your attention now? I know all about her, you dirty, sneaky, immoral, unfaithful, poorly endowed slimeball. Everything's caught on tape. Your [soon-to-be-ex] Wife, Emily.) popped up not only in New York, but in Brooklyn, Los Angeles, and Chicago as well. Some sharp-eyed readers noticed that one of Emily's blog entries was remarkably similar to the plot line of an episode of Court TV's reality show Parco P.I., and the blog and billboards were soon revealed as a stealth promotion for the upcoming season of that television series: A similar billboard was spotted in Greensboro, North Carolina, in March 2013, this one supposedly bearing a message from a scorned woman named Jennifer, whose unfaithful partner, Michael, was carrying on an affair with a woman named Jessica. The text of the billboard echoed MasterCard's classic Priceless campaign, listing items (e.g., a GPS tracker, a Nikon camera) Jessica had purchased to expose Michael's cheating ways and stating that she had used the couple's investment account to fund putting up the shaming sign. Local news accounts identified this billboard as another advertising gimmick, in this case for a Greensboro yogurt and coffee shop: Debbie Hill, vice president of Triad Outdoor Advertising (which is not affiliated with the sign), said she has never known of anyone locally buying a billboard for a revenge message. She added that personalized messages are rare in the business. It’s usually way too expensive, she said. In January 2010, YaVaughnie Wilkins put up a series of billboards in New York, San Francisco, and Atlanta after learning that the married man with whom she had been carrying on an affair for over eight years, Charles E. Phillips, had reconciled with his wife. Those billboards bore no scornful messages, however — they simply displayed a romantic picture of the couple, along with their first names and a reproduced quote from Phillips stating You are my soulmate forever: The billboards did include a URL for a (no longer active) web site, charlesphillipsandyavaughniewilkins.com, which featured numerous photographs and other mementos documenting the multi-year relationship between Wilkins and Phillips. The attendant publicity forced Phillips, who at the time was the president of Oracle Corporation and a member of President Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, to publicly acknowledge the affair. (YaVaughnie Wilkins' experience was also chronicled in the documentary film The Glamorous Lie.)
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