As far as I can tell, the people on this forum know enough about Bitcoins and technology to disregard what people are saying. However the average person does not. I was telling my family about Bitcoin and instead of using their Google-fu they asked friends on Facebook. Sadly their friends just told them it was a money laundering tool. We really need to find a way to educate the average person.
In my opinion, it would be a huge threat to Bitcoin if the government kept calling it "money laundering" and so forth. While that may be true, I have no need for a currency that is limited to black market usage. If businesses and ordinary individuals aren't adopting it, what's the point?.....
I think we need to do something to reach the masses. Maybe a bunch of us pool together to take out a billboard in some heavily populated area like LA. If we can associate Bitcoin with ideas like "currency," "convenient," "replace PayPal," "secure," and so on, that would be a great first step. There's other obvious things that need work too, like making it easier to get Bitcoins.
I like the idea of making Bitcoins look good to the average person, but I think that a billboard would not work, our culture is so used to advertising that it would be completely ignored. I propose that a good way to promote Bitcoin would to push its use on social websites like Facebook. If we can get it used regularly on Facebook nobody would ever see it as a money laundering tool.