TINTON FALLS – Bruce Madden, the founder of Alliance Commercial Pest Control, has collected a year’s worth of quotes and sayings in a binder.
Brett Madden, who is the company’s president, said his father, Bruce, has stockpiled the quotes and will eventually display them on a message board outside the business’s Tinton Falls location on Steven Avenue, adjacent to Newman Springs Road.
Madden said his father, who is retired, has changed the message board for 15 years and continues to do so.
In an Aug. 29 interview, Brett Madden said the message board, which carries clever sayings and positive reminders, serves as a pick-me-up for motorists who may need a good laugh or a reminder to smile when they are sitting in traffic.
“We wanted to give (motorists) something to look at on their way home … It’s just something different from the norm. We are trying to be a little different to make people (happy),” Madden said.
The message board is changed every two weeks.
Alliance Commercial Pest Control, which began in 1983, also has locations in Bergen and Middlesex counties. Those locations do not have a message board, Madden said.
The business has referenced quotes from the HBO show “Game of Thrones” and has displayed comical messages such as “We’ve been through so much together and most of it was your fault.”
Most recently, the business displayed the message, “Do not judge one’s story by the chapter you walked in on.”
Motorists who view the message board sometimes call with suggestions, Madden said. The company receives weekly phone calls, emails and text messages from people offering appreciation for the message board.
“If I ever try to describe locally where we are, I always say ‘we are the business with the sign,’ ” Madden said, adding that “people then know exactly who we are.”
“We have always continued because (changing the message board) has become a piece of us at this location … Wherever (my father) travels or whatever (message) he comes across, he will keep (the message) and catalog it. We have a year’s worth of quotes lined up already,” Madden said.
He said people may not want to read pest control information on a message board while they are sitting in traffic.
“If I can get you to think or smile about something, you’ll remember us,” Madden said. “… Newman Springs Road can be a parking lot … If people ever do have an (insect) problem, they will remember to call the guys with the sign.”
Although the sign does help drive business, Madden said the message board was never intended to be a marketing gimmick. He said the sign is merely “a feel good thing.”
Madden, 47, has worked for his family’s company since he was 12. He said the first quote to appear on the message board was “What we do in life echoes in eternity.”
