This is a true story. The names have been changed to protect the guilty.

A few years ago, at the television station I was working for at the time, I found myself in a marketing planning meeting designed to look for more ways, and specifically unconventional ways to get out name and logo out in the public more than we had done on our own.

We were also looking for ways to do it for free. No one came right out and said that, of course, but in the television business, when everything costs far more than it should, free is a good thing.

So we went around the table looking for ideas about where we could get advertising space to make sure people were aware that our little station existed. Our marketing consultant, a character I’ll call Louie, who appeared to have stepped right out of a Godfather movie, was listening to the ideas and making notes about ones that he liked. The ones he did like, incidentally, happened to be the ones my boss and I did not.

In any case, we found that we had come up with a handful of decent ideas that might be worth researching. Then he stepped up to the plate with his own little gym.

“You know those signs on the highway that advertise gasoline?” he said, in a scratchy, Don Corleone voice.

You’ve probably seen exactly the kind of signs he was talking about. They are posted near exits on the interstate highways, and advertise the gas stations that can be found at the upcoming exit. There are also similar signs that advertise campgrounds, hotels and restaurants. I’m not sure whether every state has them, but I assume that they do. In any case, most of the signs have three or four slots available for companies — like gas stations or restaurants — to have their logo displayed with an arrow and approximate distance.

“What if we could get our logo on one of those?” he said.

I was shocked. Not shocked in a “Wow, that’s a fantastic idea! I can’t believe no one ever thought of that before!” kind of way. I was shocked in a “are you absolutely out of your mind?!?” way.

“We can’t get our logo on one of those signs,” I said.

“How do you know?” Louie answered.

“Because we’re not a gas station.”

Apparently, the others around the table had the same reaction, because everyone had this blank look on their face. With the exception of a single colleague who was clearly too determined to be right at all costs.

She chimed in with this: “Well how can you be sure if you don’t ask.”

Maybe I had too much coffee that afternoon before the meeting. Or maybe I had just had enough foolishness that day.

“Because if there was some way that any company could get its logo on any interstate sign it wanted just for asking, do you really believe that we’d be the first ones to realize that?”

The room went silent. But the general manager apparently saw my point, because he didn’t argue. Nonetheless, Louie and his #1 fan insisted — insisted, mind you — that I call the state’s highway department and found out how we could get our television station’s logo on those signs.

So I called. I got one of the most Southern-sounding women I had heard in a long time, complete with a drawl that stretched out a mile long.

I explained to her that I wanted information about getting my company’s logo on one of those little signs. She informed me that it was a simple process: all I had to do was fill out an application for whichever sign was applicable and send the logo.

“Okay. But what if the company doesn’t offer one of those four services?”

There was dead silence. This woman would have been right at home at that initial meeting.

“Well, sir, if you’re not that kind of company, you can’t be on those signs.”

Shocking, I know.

“Okay,” I said, anticipating Louie’s follow-up question at the following week’s meeting, “Is there any other kind of sign along the roadway where I could advertise my business?”

Another pause. Then, as dryly as any comedienne could have possibly delivered the line, she said, “A billboard.”

Touché.

Sure enough, at the next marketing meeting, we went down the agenda and came to the now infamous highway sign question. I told them I had called and was told exactly what I said I would be told. I then threw in the additional note about the billboards, and somehow managed to stifle laughter.

Then Louie’s #1 fan, the one who had jumped to his immediate defense after he suggested such a silly idea, leaned across the table towards me and whispered worriedly, “You didn’t tell them where you worked, did you?”

“Of course. I told them I was calling on your behalf.”

I hadn’t, but after putting me through that embarrassment, I didn’t mind letting her sweat it out for a little while.

This should have been the end of this little incident, an exercise in futility. But it wasn’t. Good old Louie had one more surprise up his sleeve. He stood up — actually stood up — and applauded me. I got a standing ovation from him, and he thanked me for having followed through to make sure every avenue had been explored.

“Even when the avenue in question is an obvious route to nowhere,” he did not add.

Some people say a bad idea is better than no idea. Trust me: it isn’t.