Saturday, September 15, 2007

Publicity Stunt?

That's what I'm left wondering as ads referencing a Nazi gas chamber are pulled from circulation. Part of me doesn't want to say anything and give the company the press, and part of me is left in disbelief. There is no way I believe for a second that nobody screened these ads before they entered the public domain. Someone signed off on them, and they're responsible.

I suspect the news articles just significantly increased the pr mileage they got out of this ad. And while I want to insist that they publicly apologize in some meaningful way to the Jewish people, I'm just jaded enough to think that that too would be milked for publicity.

Have the people behind this been fired? Words are pretty hollow without actions to back them. There's nothing amusing about standing next to mass graves and contemplating the horrors people endured at concentration camps. This is why history is important - we have to learn from the mistakes of the past in order to keep ourselves from repeating them in the future. Clearly, something the people behind this ad don't understand.

Me, I'm just vindictive enough to have added a cell phone company to my list of businesses I never want to deal with.

5 comments:

Eileen said...

Ack. This is beyond vile.

Bronwen said...

This is awful. I'm glad you aren't mentioning their names to give them more publicity. Just awful

Linda L. Richards said...

Crack. The people on the campaign were on crack. It's the only reasonable explanation.

Sandra Ruttan said...

I worry about stuff like this. I mean, there are times I think we're hypersensitive about some things, but this... It just feels to me as though letting something like this off lightly opens the door to more racist slurs being used. And in the context of the holocaust. I've been to Dachau and Bergen Belsen, so this really bugs me.

Randy Johnson said...

I don't think you're being cynical. Advertising will say or do anything to get noticed. The only ads I find even remotely watchable are beer commercials. Most of them are funny and I don't even drink. This crap seems to be stretching the bounds of common decency though.