Day in the Life: Columbia Teen Takes Roadside Role of 'Lady Liberty' in Income Tax Season

By 2 in the afternoon on a normal workday, Athena Proctor is shuffling through her iPod for music to help finish her shift. By this time, she has been on the receiving end of a few car horns, blown kisses and the occasional middle finger.

Proctor, 18, from Columbia, dresses like the Statue of Liberty as a roadside advertisement on Route 1 in North Laurel for her seasonal employer, Liberty Tax Service.

She said sometimes people do the unexpected, like the time a man brought her coffee on a frigid February morning. Typically, though, she’s just ignored.

“I took it personally at first,” Proctor said. But after a few weeks of waving and smiling, she says people start smiling back.

“It’s extremely important to get visibility of a product,” says Tryphenia Ellis-Johnson, who owns the Liberty Tax Service franchise along with her husband. “I can’t think of a better way to do it than having the Statue of Liberty wave as drivers come by.”

This kind of marketing—the use of people on the side of the road—is as old as commerce itself, said Rebecca Hamilton, a professor of marketing at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.

“This is the oldest trick in the book, having people standing, greeting people on the street, telling them to try various services provided,” she said. “This was done before any of the other tactics.”

As a marketing approach, such a technique can be effective in capturing people’s attention and could be a direction more businesses take in a less competitive labor market in which people are willing to work for lower wages.

Although it’s not her dream job, Proctor says it’s better than the fast food jobs she’s had in the past.  At the very least, the job is helping her to pursue a degree and a budding modeling career.

After a full shift of waving and smiling—and an impromptu interview with a reporter—a man walked up to Proctor, holding out his hand.

“I’m doing this because I care,” the man said, handing her a $20 bill.

Proctor, showing her boss the token of her luck, said smiling, “That was by far the nicest thing that has happened to me.”