Call me a humourless feminist who can’t take a joke, but I think marketing Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 software on university campuses via posters that resemble community alerts about sexual predators is bad practice. Just sayin’.
Jonathan Goldsbie at Torontoist explains:
You could argue, we suppose, that the ad isn’t necessarily alluding to that particular sort of criminal, but the composite sketch, the “This man has been spotted on campus,” and the way the physical description is structured certainly play to the phrases and imagery associated with a specific type of bulletin. These posters, spotted on Spadina Road just north of Bloor, are especially tasteless in light of (multiple U of T campus sexual assaults) within the last two months.
Now I know why I own a Mac.
Digg
Facebook
del.icio.us
three comments
Grrrr! Y'know, I was just mocking one of those Mac v. PC commercials yesterday, it was the one where PC is having a bake sale to raise money to fix Vista, 'cause Microsoft had spent the whole budget on advertising. Now I see that there was some truth to that, and right on the heals of their multi-million dollar Seinfeld boondoggle, they come out with this? I think they need a new ad firm, that's for sure. I personally have no problem with their products, despite the sadsack whining of poor PC, but this is certainly a reason to never buy from them.
Posted by Michelle
October 30, 2008, 4:23 PM
what a stupid ad campaign. i'll probably have more to say on it later, but for now, i just want to register the fact that i think that poster is ridiculous.
Posted by Sheetal
November 1, 2008, 12:29 PM
i saw this today as i was walking to work at yonge and king and thought to myself "shit, this must really be bad if the police are going to such lengths to catch him". being a concerned citizen, i took a closer look, realized what it was, and found myself feeling very disgusted
Posted by Zohar
November 3, 2008, 11:11 PM
Leave a comment
This blog post is older than 90 days old. All comments submitted regarding this post will be automatically held for review by the editors before posting. Your comment will not appear on the site until it has been approved.
Our comment policy
Shameless prides itself on the diversity of opinions expressed by our writers, and we encourage and appreciate different points of view. Our intention at Shameless is to foster community and to maintain a safe and positive blogging environment; we do not consider it our duty to give a voice to anybody with an opinion.
Discussion on this site is moderated. We will delete comments that:
(We get to decide what's discriminatory, hateful, attacking, or inflammatory).
In some cases, we will cap off comments on a discussion when we feel they are spiralling out of control and fostering an unwelcoming space for bloggers and readers. Comments will be closed by the Web Editor, unless the post is by the Web Editor, in which case the Editor in Chief will close them.
If your comments repeatedly make the same point, they may be deleted. This also applies to comments made by multiple members of the same organization.
Your comments should be about the topic of the post, not its writer—although we certainly encourage praise for our writers, if you want to say something nice.