Geek Soap Box

A post in two parts:

I remain forever amazed at how little the politically devout actually know about marketing and messaging their platforms to the larger masses.  Without question, politics inspires a certain form of relentless passion in engaged individuals, but that passion often creates a sort of “mandatory call to action: you must agree with me or die!” mentality that in fact does far more harm to the position than good.

Of course, I don’t really mind this ironic side effect when the campaigns in question deem it appropriate to co-opt imagery from 9/11 to forward whackadoo causes and FAIL utterly as a result.

Let’s start with the World Wildlife Fund and its Brazilian advertising agency, DDB.  To sing love of all things Gaia and note how destructive and powerful the Pacific tsunamis were, the duo crafted a print and video campaign depicting hundreds of wayward airplanes bearing down upon New York City and the smoking World Trade Center towers.

You see, because the tsunami killed a hundred times the number of people on 9/11, and because Americans are racist ignorant upper-class snobs who don’t care at all about the suffering of others outside our borders, they just had to depict a scene where 9/11 was a hundred times worse, so we dummies “get it” about the raw power of the planet.

Fuck you, assholes.

Then came the cover-up, where both DDB and the WWF (I hate that acronym) blamed each other and disavowed any knowledge of how this campaign saw the light of day — and yet aired and magically was nominated for awards!  Congrats to the stellar marketing and advertising department of the WWF…you have just ensured that this consumer will never so much as even consider donating money to your cause ever.  In fact, I’d love to see you driven out of business so that Vince McMahon no longer has to blur his archives to the point of rendering them unwatchable.

Meanwhile, during a masterbatory interview about climate change and such in the Atlantic, economist Thomas Schelling wishes death and destruction upon Middle America so that we finally “get” the dangers associated with global warming.

But I tend to be rather pessimistic. I sometimes wish that we could have, over the next five or ten years, a lot of horrid things happening — you know, like tornadoes in the Midwest and so forth — that would get people very concerned about climate change. But I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Again, a passionate fuck you to Mr. Schelling and that irreputable publication.  First, please explain to me why you — an economist — are qualified to have a dedicated interview on global warming anyway.  Somewhere, Alfred Nobel must be spinning in his grave that glorified, inflammatory political hacks such as yourself and Paul Krugman are deemed worthy of recognition for academic excellence.  Your belief that Americans are ignorant, oblivious, racist asses (see a trend?) that only understand tragedy when it befalls them is contrary to every example of history in the past 225 years, and does nothing to further your argument or position.  Perhaps you needed to take a few more courses in classical debate or reasoning and analysis during your time roaming the halls of whatever institution you called home.

Want to win over the undecided masses?  Please stop treating them with contempt and disdain, and attempt to speak to us as equals in an engaged and robust discussion.  In a world of increased user-generated content and social media, the messagers need to learn that they no longer control the message.