And now they are selling a range of butt-plugs :eek:
Nevermind.
For those of you who don’t see anything weird with this, explain to me how a unicycle is connected to the home network.
The ad is for setting up a home network.
Well, my connection doesn’t work without a kid on a unicycle, it’s playing hell with my hardwood floors though.
Is there some other way?
Let me see if I follow you: if I can see how the ad can be misinterpreted, or in any way distract from the message they are trying to convey that means I am a pedophile? I hope I am misinterpreting you, my apologies if so.
I have naked pictures of my daughter as a baby. I think they are beautiful, and make me feel very good in a non-sexual manner. That does not mean that I will put them out there on Flickr, just because I see it in an innocent manner.
Yes, anyone who gets sexually aroused by that ad is, at the very least weird. We people that notice that the ad could be taken out of context, and is thus not a good smart thing for Cisco to put out there are just being realistic.
Cisco should be smarter.
What I got from the 3/4 second glimpse is that “connected” is like a license plate on her unicycle. The ad presumably makes more sense if you’re familiar with the rest of the ad series. My vote? I would never have made any pedo connection at all if no one had mentioned it.
Explain to me how anything in any advertisement is connected to the product.
Cavemen and car insurance. Giraffe and toy store. Clown and fast-food restaurant. Half-naked women and webhosting/registration. A bird and a pickle. Elves and cookies. And those are just the ones that have been used often enough that I remember them.
Come on people. Which makes mores sense: People make an ad with an obvious pedophilic reference? Or clueless people made an ad, not realizing the pedophilic reference? Do you think they want to alienate their target audience? Puh-lease.
Hey, fuck you buddy.
Just pointing out that this is likely a joke, since someone’s probably going to report it.
My point, to both of you, is that what is an “obvious” message to some may not be to others. Somewhat like “you have to believe it to see it” for products touted as having special properties that cannot be detected by instruments.
Or, to paraphrase Tom Lehrer, “Smut…is in the eye of the beholder.” If you are inclined to search for and find particular references, you will find more than others who are not so inclined. Therefore, this may tell more about the person doing the observing than the object being observed. If subjective interpretation is required, it will be colored by the thoughts, slants or biases of the observer.
So this guy, see, goes to the psychiatrist, who gives him the ink blot test.
“Here’s image #1. What does that remind you of?”
“Sex.”
“OK, here’s #2. What does that suggest?”
“More sex.”
“And #3?”
“Sex!”
“You seem to be obsessed with sex.”
“But Doc, you’re the one showing me the dirty pictures!”
Your attitude seems to me to be going right back to the 1950s, where no one noticed stuff about pedophilia and so forth because their minds were all clean and not filled with smut you know. I guess it made some people feel good about themselves, but it ALSO made it very, very easy for pedophile preists to molest children successfully for DECADES, as many now know to their sorrow. Point is: not seeing the sexual connotations does not mean they are not there, and it can be kinda dangerous not to see such stuff. It’s dangerous to keep your head in the sand. Not just for you. For others as well.
I was wondering when you’d show up. I lol’d.
I agree with this. I saw the ad before coming to this thread. I thought it was stupid and, like many other ads these days, deliberately vague; the ad could have just as easily been about the guy’s glasses, the girl’s unicycle, or the color scheme of the room. By the end of the ad, not only did I not have a clue what they were selling, I didn’t care. The ad would have been just as effective if a still of the Cisco logo sat on the screen for 15 seconds.
The only time I connected (heheh) the ad with pedophilia was after reading this thread. Some of you guys scare me.
Too funny. I have to admit, however, that I did think this thread was going to be about an SDMB member joining some sketchy club.
Conversely, seeing them doesn’t mean they were intended, either. It’s dangerous to read connotations where none were intended.
And, in this case, I’m not saying what was intended in the ad; as I said, it baffles me just what was intended and how the ad makers thought it would sell their product.
I recall some print ads in years past, including some Disney creations, that people found unintended images and messages in the art work – images that no rational advertiser or illustrator would have deliberately put there. But that didn’t stop people from finding sex in random ice cube patterns, the devil in the Queen’s hair or Satan in 9/11 smoke. These things are easy to find if your mind is expecting them and you are consciously looking for it. Sometimes you must believe it to see it.
Sir, you have mistakenly attributed to me an insult I didn’t make.
Perhaps the pendulum has swung back the other way, and instead of no one noticing what was actually there, some people now notice what is not there.
I’m confused. If your argument is that they didn’t know that it would appear to be an obvious pedophilic reference to some of these people, then you agree with me. Option 2: they didn’t know it would be perceived that way. The one that makes more sense.
I already explained how I didn’t think it was actually obvious. You have to freeze frame the ad, and then think about the girl as if she were older. Since it would be a “sexy” shot of an older person, then that makes it pedophilic. But, again, only if you are deliberately looking for it. Which I was, because of this thread.
And, honestly, due to the fact that this stuff can go so badly, a good advertiser has someone on staff that can do that type of analysis, and stave off the possible negative interpretation. My guess is that they had one who misjudged. Not due to malice, as people earlier in the thread were stating or at least implying, but due to ignorance.
It doesn’t matter that most of us didn’t notice, either. The ones that did are going to tell the ones that didn’t, and then they will notice it, too. When it’s bad enough to pull the thing off of YouTube (instead of just disabling comments), it’s pretty bad.
To be fair, half-naked women go well with just about everything. And they’re probably especially good for web hosting, since… well, it is the web.
Who wastes time with just half naked women? I mean it is the web.
Edited thread title to clarify that the OP is directed at Cisco the company–not the poster named Cisco.
Gfactor
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