Yeah, and unlike in the first picture, parts weren’t cut out of her body! It’s clearly inappropriate!
It is a rotating ad, and shows a lot of flesh and about half a nipple if you look closely.
I’m trying to figure out where to e-mail a complaint but their website doesn’t have any section where I can e-mail then other than for “technical or billing help”.
Does anyone have a way I can contact them?
A friend of mine got one of these in the mail and showed it to me. We discussed it and came to the consensus that it was a downright stupid ad. Then, in Tuesday’s Ottawa Citizen, on page A3, I found an article about it which I will reproduce below in a quote box:
I may have made a typo here or there (I’ve previed a couple of times) but that’s the whole of the article. I can sorta see how someone thought it would be funny – isn’t it ridiculous that someone would try to do this? I guess they figured they were saying that parents desperate for the “parental controls” in their internet service might go to “any lengths”, even stupid ones, in their frantic rush to protect their kids from porn.
It’s still a really dumb ad. If you take it at face value, it implies that a woman’s breasts are the sort of thing you should use their software to defend your kids from. :rolleyes:
See, when I looked at the copy that came in the mail, I was tempted to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I couldn’t find a way that it was funny. I can see what you’re getting at now, though.
I honestly couldn’t figure out why they had a cutout in that shape covering part of the stomach. Call me simple, I guess.
This website has info on what number to call to complain. Possibly NSFW, no images, but the word “breast”.
My bestest friend posted about this in her LJ last night, and I called to complain.
I refuse to believe that ad’s meant to be taken seriously. Most likely it’s an elaborate and fairly convincing mock-up of Bell Sympatico’s ad campaign done by some hoaxers. If not that, perhaps their agency prepared an ad tweaking the blue noses of overly protective parents as a joke only to have Bell think it was for real and accept it.
In any case, if the ad is for real, I suppose there’ll be a companion ad featuring a copy of the Webster’s (do they publish this in Canada?) or Oxford Unabridged Dictionary open to a page with some “objectionable” words and definitions blacked out with a magic marker. After all, every right-thinking parent should know a seemingly “innocent” dictionary is really a gateway to hard-core pornography!
[QUOTE]
That ad on the right side of the web page is a bit questionable.
Um, so hoaxers put that exact same ad in my mailbox, and in the mailbox of **Kid_A[b/]? Pretty darn organized hoaxers.
Having read the “official” explanation, I guess I can sorta see what they were trying for - humor through absurdity. The execution sure is poor though. The main problem is, it’s not nearly absurd ENOUGH. I know this is coming out of Canada, but there are FAR too many people in the States who are lobbying their local public school districts to remove all vestiges of sex ed. The textbook with the cutout boobies and organs wouldn’t strike them as humorous. It’s what they’re AIMING FOR.
Given that social reality, the ad just ain’t funny.
No, it’s definitely real. I’ve held a paper copy in my hands. The article I posted above includes a statement from the company about it. Here’s the online version of that article, but you need to be a subscriber to read more than the first paragraph.
(Actually, come to think of it, that calls into question whether I was within the SDMB’s rules on copyrighted works. I posted the article because I thought it was unavailable online and saw no harm in doing so, but after doing a google search for the story in response to NDP’s post, it looks like I’ve just given away what the Citizen is trying to sell. To moderators: if I get a ruling on this, I will comply with it in the future. Please understand that no transgression or ill will was intended.)
Exactly.
OK, badmana and anyone else who saw the NSFW ad on the newpaper’s website. It’s a rotating ad and wasn’t there when I had seen the link. My apologies all around.
Thing is, IMHO, if the ad is meant to be over-the-top absurd, it’s not going to be effective as an advertisement. In essence, it’s saying “Overprotectiveness is stupid–let’s perpetuate it!”
Not a problem. I was at work (ironically at Bell, HOWS THAT FOR IRONIC) and I didn’t want to get caught having a pic like that sitting on my machine (it’s a wee bit too late now).
Yeah, the ad is real. I checked it out and the ‘retraction’ if you want to call it that, is real as far as I can tell.
I wouldn’t bother calling Bell to bitch through. Media and marketing issues can’t really be ‘reported’ as the ad is “print safe” (meaning no outright inappropriate images or words).
You could send a quick message via their web site but I’d be lying if I told you they’d do anything about this ad. Really, it’s not a huge deal and Bell isn’t in any way anti-feminist IMO.
True. If it’s not absurd enough, it’s not funny; if it’s too ridiculous, it doesn’t say anything useful about the product. So it’s just a bad advertising concept all around.
That’s my problem with it. It’s NOT anti-feminist. They could have done the same with an anatomical picture of a man, with the wedding tackle cut out. The ad is anti-knowledge. It’s not sexual. It’s not porn. It’s anatomy ferchrissake!
And they did (look on the left side of the page).
I don’t watch TV much, and the other night in my hotel the ad that includes that particular image flashed by. I waited for the rest of the commercials to end, just to make sure I wasn’t watching This Hour Has 22 Minutes or Air Farce or some such.
What in the name of Og were they thinking? The comment above about “Overprotectiveness is stupid! Let’s perpetuate it!” is right on the money.
It seems in general advertisers try to make an attention-grabbing scene, then connect it to the product with a weak joke. The joke is just a segue from the attention grabber to the pitch. The initial scene just gets your attention so you can see the pitch. In that regard, this ad works.
The ad is real; it appeared in our local Metro commuter paper sometime last week. LaurAnge’s mockup is quite close, except that in the real ad, the Offending Bits were obliterated by cutouts through the thickness of the anatomy book.
I was appalled. The ad praised perpetuating ignorance even in the context (an anatomy textbook) where depictions of such body parts, even to kids, are legitimate. And it praised mutilating books.
Go to this page and select Canada; you can download a PDF of the paper that includes the ad. Unfortunately, the site is incredibly slow and often times out when a new page is requested. I was only able to download two PDFs out of about eight attempts.