Fine Gael, Permanent Tsb, One particular Pamphlet on Islam, something in common.

Bottle_of_Smoke

Along with many others.

The other day I saw a fine gael billboard, seemed like it was part of their campaign to get people to vote for them. It may have been, but with a twist.

Its the one where you see Mr John "Average good upstanding member of Irish Society Stereotype" Murphy.
He looks stressed & the caption reads "I work hard and pay my taxes, why is the government wasting my money"(possible slight difference of wording, I'm not looking it up)

Then it mentions e-voting & various other blunders. But no mention of who you should vote for, just "Don't vote for them"

It got me thinking of when I opened an account with permanent TSB a while back. The girl setting it up just kept talking about how all the other banks charge fees. Ulster bank are doing it now too with that ad where its 10 euro to use the swings in a park(idea blatantly stolen from macdonalds). It actually seemed she thought all I cared about was saving 4 euro a month in banking fees.

Last time I opened an account (different bank bout 4 years ago) there was none of this bull. Maybe everywhere's doing it now I can't be sure.

Then I remembered getting a pamphlet about how Islam views Jesus Christ. They start going on about how great he is & it's all witten very nice & easy & peace be upon Mohammed (Peace be upon him) etc but for some reason in a pamphlet with an article on Jesus that fits on two faces of a pamphlet of Chinese takeaway menu size the Jews are referred to as rejecting Jesus three times. And they hand them out in country where Jesus is number 1 & Jews are of minority.


It's been happening a lot in the last few years, the first I remember of a big company blatently being proved to be poor value in public was when a lot of telecommunications companies had posters on billboards showing their prices alongside those of Eircom.

While I agree with the above example I think Fine Gael are particularly pathetic. That just shows me that they're so bad with ideas they've resorted to insulting others who've made a few errors. I know they will make promises coming up to the elections but it seems like a girl trying to get a guy by bitching about mistakes his girlfriend has made in the past.

The Islamic one is also pretty unethical, especially in Ireland where most people don't know a Jewish person.

Permanent TSB isn't as bad as the rest as they're actually going to make free banking being default with every account anywhere happen a lot faster. And it's an industry that's been far too long been semi monopolised. But I hate the way she's trained to think everyone cares about such a small thing.

Anyway what do people think the concept of shi*tting on others was brought on by?

Is it happening more & why?

Is it acceptable on a political level by a party with a budet the size of Fine Gael's?

Anyone noticed any other glaring examples?

aniascor

It is definitely happening more and more - although it's still fairly subtle in comparison with the types of "slating the opposition" advertising you hear and see in the States.

The most recent example that springs to mind for me is an ad for broadband I've been hearing recently on Today FM. It seems to play on the advertising other broadband providers use (Saying "Some of them even go so far as to tell you it's magic" - I assume this is in reference to Smart's "It's not magic" catchphrase) and in doing so, it subtley slags off other providers. This type of advertising really bugs me - I always feel it is similar to being in an interview situation, and when asked why you should get the job, choosing to slag off the other interviewees instead of actually describing your own merits.

It seems to me that this type of advertising is partly from a US influence - slowly but surely, our advertising forms are starting to mimic their advertising forms.

Other than that, I guess as a nation we've always been only too happy to point out other people's faults and ignore our own shortcomings! And on that broad sweeping statement, I think I'd better leave it!!

The_Minister

The one that got me from Fine Gael's ad campaign was the one about crime - we have a very low crime rate! They are making people afraid when there is no need and trying to sully the name of the country at the same time. Trying to put down the government in its second-best area with unfounded accusations

Pythia

Fine Gael had a follow up campaign saying what they'd do to change things, as well as holding various public meetings about it.