WZEE radio, better known as Z104, recently started billboard advertisements for their morning show \Connie and Fish in the Morning,"" making light of the Audrey Seiler missing person case from this past spring.
The advertisements show the two hosts standing in a marsh, their hands bound with duct tape and wrapped in rope with slogans like ""Depressed?"" and, ""Boyfriend not noticing you?"" A third billboard shows the duo duct-taped and holding a flashlight with the line ""This has nothing to do with Audrey Seiler.""
The billboards were erected Monday, Nov. 8, and according to Jeff Tyler, the Madison area Clear Channel vice president and market manager, the design concepts for the billboards was conceived by the show's hosts, Connie Kelli and Fish Calloway.
He agreed while there are still people in Madison upset about the incident, the station has yet to receive any formal complaints against the ads.
""Much like The Onion's flavor of humor, that's what were doing here... It's not meant to judge Audrey or anything that happened with her ... it's just trying to have a little fun,"" he said.
Tyler added that the motivations behind the ads were to put Kelli and Calloway into a context that is generally understood by the Madison public.
""They are a brand that is very familiar now ... we just need to market them in fun ways that make people identify with what they're seeing.""
Students were split on how to interpret the ads.
UW sophmore Talia Davidow said she thought the billboard designs are ""cheap and tacky, but it's fine. I can see the humor in it. I'm just not taking it as very classy.""
But some see the radio station's jests as Seiler's just desserts.
Sophomore Chenyu Wang said he thought Seiler's actions brought about such satire. ""She lied to the police, to the public. She brought this on herself by pretending to be kidnapped, so to make fun of her is fair,"" he said.
Representatives from the university declined to comment.
