White Bull Army. Everything that was ever wrong with Ad Awards in just one Video.

You know what the problem is? I have seen dozens of similar cases. I have seen people making fun ads out of 9/11, marketing guys taking the piss out of environmentalists…and it fucking makes me cry to see that. Is that a satire? Sure? No – it’s just one more example that there is nothing too sensitive to ridicule it…just because it’s possible. Sad.

Ah….nobody in the ad industry has any concept of self-awareness. I love generalizations. But alright. I never pretended to be an activist and I am not quite sure where you got this from. Anyway I have seen zillions of things similar to yours. I don’t know what this video wants to achieve but if it wants to keep the guys who love to laugh about everything (because everything can be broken ironically) laughing – fair enough. That cynical. Not ironic.

Thanks a lot for the update on idealism – but I don’t think so. There is more to political thinking than a charity campaign or – alternatively – making fun of horrible tragedies. There sometimes is also the chance to shut the fuck up about sensitive things. Of course, there is a chance to make a great satire out of political tragedies such as this. But mixing a satire about advertising by using Sudan as a metaphor is exactly the useless crap I want to criticize here. That’s why I don’t miss the point here. It does not matter if this is an offical award entry or not. It’s horrific one way or the other. Simply because it shows a lot of lack of respect.

The edit you made to your article is confusing. Why do you keep bringing up its officialism as an award entry no one has questioned
that but you.

It seems whatever anyone says your not going to change your opinion on this and maybe thats a good thing, as at face value it appears your looking out for the underdog who can’t speak up for themselves, nice guy.

In reality though I think your someone who IS cynical – about media awards or something and you were just looking for an example you could use to vent your hate for these types of awards and you found a vdieo you could bash while looking like the good guy. Well done mate!

The truth is, at the beginning you toyed with the idea it was a sarcastic comment to cover yourself by the fact that it is. Now though you’ve argued against me and another guy (using swear words btw, its not smart, cool or clever) and your like a stick being driven further into the mud.

So I give up on you, but I do hope the others who read this will see the video for what it really is and take it with a pinch of salt.

… and one more thing- nothing is sacred in the world of irony mate nothing! If we can’t laugh in the face of adversity we should all just kill ourselves – a theory proven by your article as taking your view on things made you want to kill yourself. Well don’t do that – its silly.

I think you have to ask the people in Southern Sudan if they find this video showing a lack of respect and I wouldn’t think so. Think you take the whole thing a bit too serious. We are talking about beer and advertising, nothing to be too serious about!

I don’t know what industry YOU’re in, but if you are seriously trying to say that being in advertising and marketing requires you to be cynical, you have been living under a friggin’ rock. Sure, cynicism provides relief from a stressful job, as a sort of venting. That’s true for any stressful job. But even the most stressed out ad guy knows that cynicism has never done anything constructive and creative in anyone’s life. And it doesn’t provide business growth either. Nor is it helpful to to show your creative out of the box thinking. It’s automatically self-referential and backward looking. Yawn. Being creative means avoiding cynicism as much as you can.

There is also no problem with breaking with conventions. Sometimes you really need to. And I admire people who can. But sometimes, you just gotta grow up and ask yourself if the means justify the end.

There is simply a difference in knowing WHY you break with conventions and not knowing why. This viral doesn’t know why. It has no purpose, no meaningful end, whatsoever. Or rather, the purpose it has is too small and insignificant in comparison to the way it chose to communicate and address this purpose. So it’s not about morals, activism, do-goody malarkey. It’s simply about this viral having a low purpose/act ratio. Even if this viral idea could be called “original” it simply doesn’t have enough purpose to hold up. That’s why it is loud and sensationalist, not more and not less. And in fact, because of this, it actually aggrandizes Advertising even more. It is a caricature of a caricature of the advertising industry, which tells people: it’s okay to be this way.

So, whenever you are ready to graduate from an infantile and sophomoric “you don’t get it, it’s a parody” argument, you gotta simply accept this fact: when you touch on sensitive areas like war and genocide to shake people up, you better have a worthwhile purpose other than satiring the ad industry, or, a lot more talented (say, as talented as Eddie Izzard). And sorry, I am not cynical enough to believe that advertising is important enough to require a warstricken country as a metaphor for advertising’s propensity to aggrandize itself and glorifying its output. You could have gotten the same point across by building a castle out of feces and setting it aflame in front of the WPP, Omnicom, and Publicis headquarters. Granted, there might be other more constructive ways to make that point, but it would have been a more appropriate act to serve the purpose of pointing out discontent with the advertising industry, than using the Sudan’s recent history. Parody for the sake of parody is simply fostering uninspired behavior. In other words: it is not creative.

Without a meaningful purpose that creates some kinda qualitative difference in people’s lives, it is feckless rubbish.

Btw, this discussion always comes up in the context of shockvertising, too. How disgusting do you have to be to make a point (that usually people are already aware of anyway), say for road safety? It’s a hard line to walk. But in this case it seems like the line wasn’t even discussed, considered or seen. It was bulldozed over with no other purpose than to morbidly and self-referentially giggle like little spoiled brats.

You have probably followed the thread. I absolutely agree – it’s wrong in so many ways.