Pseudo-Activism
Posted: Fri 7 August, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Cynicism, Thoughts 1 Comment »If you’re a regular user of Twitter or Facebook, you can’t avoid seeing ‘campaigns’ of one sort or another. Facebook has infinitely more of them – there seems to be a campaign for everything from “Bring back Smarties in round tubes” to “Free [name person of choice here]”
Twitter ‘campaigns’ seem to be more about changing your ID picture. They went green in support of Iranian elections earlier, and now there’s one about Freeing Gary Mckinnon that adds a “Free Gary” (as opposed to charging for him, one supposes) bar to the Twitter avatar.
Personally, I don’t get involved in these campaigns at all. If I wanted to do so, I’d go to something like the ePetitions section at Number 10 (Not that they get any more attention, but at least it’s being done in the right place) rather than the frankly pointless ones elsewhere.
Because the thing is, Facebook et al may be “the voice of the people”, but governments and (in general) businesses don’t really give a shit about what people say. There are exceptions to the rule, of course – such as Cadbury’s bringing back the Wispa bar – but there’s no way they’d have done that without the expectation of making a significant amount of profit out of it.
Iran didn’t give a shit about how many people’s Twitter icons went green. Number 10 didn’t give a shit about the anti-war protests and marches.
Facebook et al like these campaigns, because they add to the marketing profile of the people who sign up for them. That’s it. You sign up to these things – say, “Bring back Smarties” and Rowntrees will start to know how many people extra might buy a “limited edition” round Smarties tube, and thus make profit for them.
And that’s all it is.
Funereal
Posted: Thu 6 August, 2009 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Thoughts 2 Comments »While I do think it’s sad – although hardly unexpected – to know that “the last Tommy” (the last British soldier from World War One) died at the end of July, I can’t help but find the way his funeral has been taken over today to be pretty objectionable.
Harry Patch’s request was for a small funeral party, for just family and friends. No fuss, no pomp – pretty much what one would expect from someone who led as quiet a life as he appears to have done.
Instead, there’s been tickets issued for the funeral, some 1,000-plus people in Wells Cathedral as well as a public parade, and people outside on Cathedral Green to see the proceedings on video screens. It’s turned into some kind of media carnival, with (on one report I heard just now) reporters doing a broadcast from inside the cathedral while the service was going on. (And regardless of everything else, the disrespect of that action just stuns me)
While I don’t really have a problem with people showing their respects to Harry Patch – although how many of them really knew him at all? – I don’t really get why the media et al feel that it’s OK to trample over his last wishes in this way.
Shoplifters
Posted: Thu 30 July, 2009 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Thoughts Leave a comment »As usual, I haven’t quite got round to figuring the logic relating to this sign in our local Sainsbury’s…
How is this related to my safety and security?
I don’t know how prosecuting thieves is for my safety/security.
In fact, I’d suggest that a rather more honest sign would read
For our profits, we always prosecute thieves
Savings?
Posted: Mon 27 July, 2009 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »In the shops today, I came across something that I still can’t quite get my head around. It’s one of those things where you’re just not sure if you’ve missed something relevant, or if it really is that weird.
Let me explain.
At the moment, both Sainsburys and Tescos have a promotion where you can buy 2 two-litre bottles of Coke (or Diet Coke) for £2. That’s fine.
However, right next to the individual bottles, they have a “Big Value” pack of 4 two-litre bottles. For £5.18 .
So the “Big Value” pack costs £1.18 more than 2 lots of the 2×2-litre deal.
What’ve I missed?
How not to do it
Posted: Sat 25 July, 2009 Filed under: Advertising, Customer Services, Cynicism, Geeky, Security, Stupidity, Technology, Toyota IE | Tags: ian corbett, toyota ie Leave a comment »This post has been deleted, on the request of Ian Corbett, Marketing Manager of Toyota Ireland, and his legal advisers.
For more explanation, see here.
Mis-Spelling
Posted: Fri 24 July, 2009 Filed under: Cynicism, Security, Stupidity, Thoughts 2 Comments »Yesterday, I got three spam emails attempting to go phishing for my log-in details.
Now, as I’ve said before many times, I feel that anyone who responds through these phishing emails deserves everything they get for being a bell-end and clicking on links in random emails. (Particularly when they then go to some very odd URLs that have nothing to do with the bank in question – in this case www.mybank.alliance-leicesterXXX.com)
And if anyone responded to any of these particular three emails, then they’re even more deserving of getting ripped off. In fact I’d then go so far as to simply term it as an idiot tax.
Because the subject line for all of these email addresses was :
Secure Message from Alliance & Liecester
And if you don’t spot that in the email, and still click on the links, you damn well deserve to lose your information/money.
Back to Where It Began
Posted: Thu 23 July, 2009 Filed under: Creativity, Cynicism, Thoughts 2 Comments »I see that the ITV series “The Bill” is getting a lot of publicity about how it’s going from being a shitey soap-type programme down to a one-hour/episode-per-week drama series. It’s even going out post-watershed.
But what no-one seems to be commenting on is the fact that this isn’t a new thing for The Bill – in fact, that’s right where it started.
So this rethink and reschedule is really more an acknowledgement that all the fucking about with it over the last few years didn’t work, so it’s going to go back to its roots a bit, and see where it goes from there.
Personally, I hope it works out – when it first came out, The Bill was a decent police series. Maybe it’ll go back to being one again, although only time will tell on that score.