I have just been reading a blog post on the site of Duncan Crow (Conservative Councillor for Furnace Green on Crawley Borough Council) about a misleading mailer put out by Labour in the local area
Now whilst I don't know the in's and out's of this particular case from my experience with the Local Council it is really not a surprise, I have always found the comments made in many political flyers to be very misleading at best and downright deceptive at worst. When I was campaigning I regularly read things that entirely mislead the reader and encountered many tactics like the one Cllr Crow mentioned where something that can not be accepted is proposed simply so it has to be turned down.
I have always wondered how effective this kind of dirty tricks campaigning is as I would hope that the general public would be too smart to go for this, but then as the people who do it keep getting elected I guess my faith in mankind may be a little too idealistic. But anyway my main reason of bringing this up is to say isn't it time that the contents of Political literature is checked for accuracy? I find it crazy that the Advertising Standards Commission do not have the power to check these things for accuracy, in fact you can make any outlandish claims you want and to hell with the truth (I call this the Lib Dem Model)
Going forward I would like to see not just the leaflets checked for honesty (With very harsh penalties for deliberately misleading voters) but I would also like to have all politicians held to account for the contents of their manifesto with an annual review where they would have to update the electorate on progress against what was promised, this doesn't mean that plans can't change as that would obviously hamstring the council to a policy that may be 3 years out of date but at the very least if they are not keeping their promises they need to stand up and say why.
Showing posts with label Adverts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Adverts. Show all posts
Tuesday, 31 December 2013
Twitter user: Brilliant Ads
For those of you on Twitter I can definitely recommend @Brilliant_ads many examples of what happens when Advertising folks actually start thinking - You notice their are no ads for Perfumes there, not really a surprise!!
I definitely liked this one for a Swedish bookshop, simple and yet controversial and funny, it will get spoken about and yet would have cost peanuts to produce.
Friday, 3 June 2011
Where does Personal become Racist?
A Newspaper article caught my eye yesterday, it is something I really shouldn’t be worried about writing about but I find that I have to very carefully form the sentences in my mind before typing them such is the fear of offending on such a delicate matter. The Article that took my attention is about Racism and as a White Male I am time and time again told that I have no way of being able to comment on this issue – An Irony that my race would make me ineligible to speak on racism. (In my life I have been on the receiving end of racist taunts and a few racist attacks, I attended a predominantly Asian college and calls of Gora (An Indian term meaning white skinned) were common and unfortunately often accompanied by spitting and on a few occasions violence.)
I think my views on racism are probably that which are held by most rational thinking people, That racism is wrong, not just morally but intellectually, it really doesn’t take much brain power that to group together the Hundreds of Millions/Billions of each race into one group and judge them all on that basis is clearly insane. Surely logic dictates that if you take a million Caucasians and a million Afro-Caribbeans then you will get a very wide mix of experiences and life stories and similarities will come across the groups just as surely as differences must occur within them. Therefore if you are to discount a large proportion of the worlds population on the basis of Colour, just like on sex or education or wealth or any division for that matter, you will be severely limiting your scope.
Anyway back to the actual article, this article was about a dispute with Naomi Campbell and Cadbury’s chocolate, in their latest advert Cadbury’s displayed a picture of their new chocolate bar alongside the slogan “Move over Naomi, There’s a new Diva in town.”
Naomi Campbell then came straight out and attacked Cadburys for racism. When I first heard that I was not sure on what grounds but as Naomi says herself “I am shocked. It’s upsetting to be described as chocolate, not just for me but for all black people.” So her issue is with being described as chocolate which I can kind of agree with as this is a playground racial slur and if we are to ever beat racism the battle needs to start on the playground. However the advert does not compare Naomi to a chocolate but rather it compares a chocolate to Naomi which is a very important difference.
In essence the Advert takes one element of her personality and assigns it to the chocolate bar in this case her reputation as a diva. Now you could argue if this is bordering on an attack on her by accusing her of being a diva (Even if it does then it would clearly be personal and not racially motivated.) however by her own admission their reflection on her personality must be correct, After all the advert does not say “Move over Naomi Campbell” it only says Naomi it is the usage of Naomi and diva in the same sentence that she has taken as being a clear indication that it is her, if it said “Move over Naomi – there’s a new astrophysicist in town.” It is unlikely anyone would be thinking of Naomi Campbell.
So as she is clearly being mentioned in this advert due to her personality trait and not her race then clearly the only think that is holding up her claims of racism is that chocolate is brown, following this complaint through to it’s natural conclusion therefore would basically be stating that no Afro-Caribbean people could advertise chocolate or for that matter anything that is brown – Assumingly this would be a real headache for Hagen-Daz who would have to carefully monitor that they don’t have the wrong people advertising their chocolate ice cream or heaven forbid a white woman selling vanilla. So in Naomi Campbell’s ideal world the jobs people could do would be dictated to by their colour – Thank god she is fighting against racism!
Quite unbelievably when looking up a few facts for this post (I know it is hard to believe but I do occasionally check the facts I am writing about.) I came across calls from “Black Civil Rights Groups” calling for a boycott of all Kraft goods and a quote from Lee Jasper (Controversial Former equalities aide to Ken Livingstone when he was mayor) who has said “Part of the problem is that [These companies] don’t see it as offensive.” Perhaps the problem is that this isn’t offensive unless you look for it, perhaps the fact is that Naomi’s race didn’t come into the equation at all they simply asked who was the biggest Diva they could mention and Naomi’s name was at the top, so in fact it is just possible that despite Mr. Jasper’s claims this incident is a symptom of a less racist world, but for that to happen we must all leave behind the hang ups of the past.
I think my views on racism are probably that which are held by most rational thinking people, That racism is wrong, not just morally but intellectually, it really doesn’t take much brain power that to group together the Hundreds of Millions/Billions of each race into one group and judge them all on that basis is clearly insane. Surely logic dictates that if you take a million Caucasians and a million Afro-Caribbeans then you will get a very wide mix of experiences and life stories and similarities will come across the groups just as surely as differences must occur within them. Therefore if you are to discount a large proportion of the worlds population on the basis of Colour, just like on sex or education or wealth or any division for that matter, you will be severely limiting your scope.
Anyway back to the actual article, this article was about a dispute with Naomi Campbell and Cadbury’s chocolate, in their latest advert Cadbury’s displayed a picture of their new chocolate bar alongside the slogan “Move over Naomi, There’s a new Diva in town.”
Naomi Campbell then came straight out and attacked Cadburys for racism. When I first heard that I was not sure on what grounds but as Naomi says herself “I am shocked. It’s upsetting to be described as chocolate, not just for me but for all black people.” So her issue is with being described as chocolate which I can kind of agree with as this is a playground racial slur and if we are to ever beat racism the battle needs to start on the playground. However the advert does not compare Naomi to a chocolate but rather it compares a chocolate to Naomi which is a very important difference.In essence the Advert takes one element of her personality and assigns it to the chocolate bar in this case her reputation as a diva. Now you could argue if this is bordering on an attack on her by accusing her of being a diva (Even if it does then it would clearly be personal and not racially motivated.) however by her own admission their reflection on her personality must be correct, After all the advert does not say “Move over Naomi Campbell” it only says Naomi it is the usage of Naomi and diva in the same sentence that she has taken as being a clear indication that it is her, if it said “Move over Naomi – there’s a new astrophysicist in town.” It is unlikely anyone would be thinking of Naomi Campbell.
So as she is clearly being mentioned in this advert due to her personality trait and not her race then clearly the only think that is holding up her claims of racism is that chocolate is brown, following this complaint through to it’s natural conclusion therefore would basically be stating that no Afro-Caribbean people could advertise chocolate or for that matter anything that is brown – Assumingly this would be a real headache for Hagen-Daz who would have to carefully monitor that they don’t have the wrong people advertising their chocolate ice cream or heaven forbid a white woman selling vanilla. So in Naomi Campbell’s ideal world the jobs people could do would be dictated to by their colour – Thank god she is fighting against racism!
Quite unbelievably when looking up a few facts for this post (I know it is hard to believe but I do occasionally check the facts I am writing about.) I came across calls from “Black Civil Rights Groups” calling for a boycott of all Kraft goods and a quote from Lee Jasper (Controversial Former equalities aide to Ken Livingstone when he was mayor) who has said “Part of the problem is that [These companies] don’t see it as offensive.” Perhaps the problem is that this isn’t offensive unless you look for it, perhaps the fact is that Naomi’s race didn’t come into the equation at all they simply asked who was the biggest Diva they could mention and Naomi’s name was at the top, so in fact it is just possible that despite Mr. Jasper’s claims this incident is a symptom of a less racist world, but for that to happen we must all leave behind the hang ups of the past.
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