The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

From Media Magazine: M&C Saatchi Asia-Pacific president and CEO Kim Walker has issued a comprehensive apology for three mock ads created by an art director at its New Delhi office, which have drawn fierce criticism on the internet.

The images, which depict the World Trade Center, Hiroshima and Bhopal tragedies, appear as ads for skincare client VLCC, along with the strapline “Some scars never go.” The art director responsible for creating and uploading the work – Chaman Singh – has since been fired by the agency, while the offending work has also been removed from the website.

Walker also stated that VLCC had absolutely no knowledge of the work.“M&C Saatchi is mortified and disgusted by these so-called ads and despite not having any participation in their creation, apologises for the understandable revulsion from those who see them“.

Nice to see the time honoured tradition of ‘Passing The Buck’ is alive and well in advertising. Of course no one in his agency had any knowledge of the ads … I mean, we all know how quiet and secretive creative people are. At least justice prevailed but if I was VLCC, I’d sue because people will remember the ads far longer than the apology!

These are M&C India’s fucking tasteless ad’s for a beauty company. [They ‘claim’ to be scam-ads, but regardless, they demonstrate an alarming lack of taste]

Sure shock tactics can work – but only when there’s an intelligent reason for it and cleverly executed. 

As far as I am concerned, these are some of the most disgusting examples of advertising ever … though Bennetton are probably happy as it makes their ads seem almost tactful.

M&C – and VLCC – be ashamed, be very, very ashamed.

…. I reckon he’d be like the Pavlova I ate in Shanghai …

… or this Mango Cheesecake I scoffed in Singapore.

Which begs the questions …

1. Why is there a global agenda to make all desserts poncy and flamboyant?

2. When did it become wrong to offer basic apple crumble and custard?

3. Why is ‘yellow’ the colour most strongly associated with dessert?

4. Why did I eat an Australian Pavlova in Shanghai?

5. Why is ‘Bread And Butter’ Pudding in so many Asian Hotels?*

6. Why am I eating so much when I’m supposedly taking more care of my health?

* Yes, I do realise this sort of makes point 2 redundant!

So I walk into the office and Emah, my wonderful colleague, is wearing an AC/DC t-shirt.

Now this was weird for me because …

[1] She is only 22

[2] She is far too nice to like ‘Satan’s Music’

[3] She only has talked about people/bands like Usher or Snow Patrol So being a shit, I asked her to name me just 3 songs by the band and rather unsurprisingly, she couldn’t. 

Infact, she couldn’t even name one.  Oh dear.

So why is she wearing a t-shirt by a band she doesn’t know … I mean why not a SNOW PATROL or another band she’s never heard of? 

Well the answer sort-of lies with Mr Big Knob himself, Tommy Lee – Motley Crue’s amazing drummer [and shagger]. 

You see for the last few months he’s been involved in a reality show called SUPERNOVA – where he’s been seeking a singer for the new band he’s setting up with ex-Guns ‘n’ Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke and ex-Metallica bassist, Jason Newstead.

Given this new band is made up of credible heavy rock musicians … playing classic heavy rock songs each and every week … it means this genre of music is back in people’s consciousness for the first time in ages. 

And with much of today’s music scene being literally littered with Mummy-pleasing teenagers, singing bland pap while dancing in a choreographed fashion … the TV smashing, coke snorting, multi-girl shagging, big note spending, excessive, impressive and obsessive Rock STAR is not only becoming quite famous again, but quite cool too!

So where does this link to AC/DC?

Well quite a while ago, I did a paper that looked into the interesting trend that youngsters weren’t just buying the music of JET, Muse and WolfMother [etc etc] – but also the music of the bands that were seen as the ‘originators’ of that genre like The Stones, Queen and AC/DC [etc etc]. 

Apparently the kids did this because apart from enjoying the music [often thinking it was better than the modern day equivalent] it allowed them to NOT be seen as ‘jumping on the bandwagon’ of popular music – giving them a feeling of greater music cred than the teeny-boppers around them.

Yep, music snobbery at 12 years of age.

So I put it to my lovely colleague that the real reason she bought the AC/DC T-shirt was that they were a band with a long, credible history [even though she didn’t know any of their music] and this would allow her to be viewed [by the outside World] as a real Rock Music Lover rather than one of those incredibly sad ‘TV Reality Show Rock Band Groupies’.

She listened intently to my point of view before replying, “I just liked the look of it”

Bitch!

It gets better than this 8×8 feet ‘allocated space’ that the Singaporean Government agreed to …

At Singapore’s ‘Speakers Corner’ – there was 1 person talking about the IMF [with 3 people listening] surrounded by 40 armed policeman, 2 dog handlers, a government cameraman [getting pictures of anyone listening or speaking!] and a military helicopter flying high above.

And they call this freedom of speech.  Gawd bless ’em!