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The lawyers at Hamilton, Brook, Smith Reynolds knew that many clients would be coming to Boston to attend a huge trade show with thousands of attendees.  Two weeks prior to the show, the intellectual property law firm sent its clients "survival packages," including a map of Boston's crazy street pattern and a pharmacy bottle with Ardropsacillin.

Being a child of the '60s, I gotta love any law firm that gives out drugs to clients.  Rather than "one pill makes you larger, and the other one makes you small," the pills claimed to help out-of-towners understand the incomprehensible Boston accent.

The label said it "prevents inadvertent letter "r" pronunciation deficiency caused by exposure to the Boston accent."

Before, a Bostonian would say "I pahked the cah in Havahd Yahd," to the utter confusion of visitors.  After taking two of the pills, the visitor would hear "I parked the car in Harvard Yard."  Plus their breath would be minty fresh.  The dosage was "two tablets at first articulation of  'cah' or 'pahk.'" Visitors could order scrod at Legal Seafood or Indian Pudding at Durgin Park without concern.

The joke pharmaceutical was actually a container of sugar-free tic-tacs in orange pharmacy bottles that the firm had purchased at 13 cents apiece.  But the cleverness and memorability of the technique were genuine.

Kudos to comic genius and Marketing Director Audra Callanan based in Hamilton Brook Smith & Reynolds' Concord, MA, office for yet another bright idea.