Sunday, February 18, 2007

The Truth About Argentina - Upside Down



Make sure you stick with this to the end. Very clever.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't know whether it is the truth or not. Whoever thought that one up should be being sought out by the Tories. It is bloody brilliant, and, so simple.

Anonymous said...

OT. From today’s Telegraph article on the Olympic supermosque:

"Tablighi Jamaat has hired a lobbying firm with a track record of supporting controversial planning applications, in an attempt to build political support for the project.

Indigo Public Affairs says that a formal planning application for the mosque will be submitted in the autumn, possibly with the size scaled back to meet some of the objections.
"


Indigo Public Affairs' election analyser is David Boothroyd, a Labour councillor on Westminster City Council. According to Boothroyd’s wiki entry he wrote Politico's Guide to the History of British Political Parties so I’m guessing Iain knows him. Wiki also says:

"He attracted some attention in 2005 when he campaigned vociferously against the City Council after it refused planning permission for the Rainbow Flag on a building in Soho. He is currently an Account Executive for Indigo Public Affairs, a company specialising in urban regeneration schemes and lobbying for planning consent."

How does Councillor Boothroyd reconcile his campaign for a symbol of gay pride with IPA’s support for a fundamentalist Islamic group which by its very nature is vehemently anti-gay?

Perhaps Iain could find out.

(Those opposed to the mosque may be interested to know that the contact details of IPA's managing director Richard Patient are available on the company's website.)

Unknown said...

Very clever indeed! A pity it uses Yann Thiersen's music rather than some cool electro-tango.

Anonymous said...

Very clever indeed, and yes, the Tories should get the individual who thought this up. He's an original thinker.

Head of Legal - Yes, a cool electro tango would have enhanced the message and the surprise no end.

Old BE said...

Campaign HQ should be making a few of these for DC! Brilliant!

kinglear said...

Now you know how Bliar did it.

Anonymous said...

anonanon, I think you'll find that the MD of Indigo is rather more politically aligned with the Conservatives than his account executive - so if the boss is a Tory does that mean it's ok for IPA to lobby for the planning application

Anonymous said...

Ah well I think Boothroyd spends much of his time when he's working at Indigo actually *writing* Wikipedia articles. You'll find his (rather beligerent) contributions here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Fys

Anonymous said...

Don't assume I'm a Tory, liberalone. I'm disgusted with anyone involved in the promotion of this mosque project, regardless of politics. I mentioned Boothroyd because I thought Iain Dale might know him.

I just hope Indigo Public Affairs gets a heap of bad publicity over this.

Anonymous said...

Well, blow me down. (Mind you, I've had just the one).

{thinks: what the fishnet stockings was that all about?.]

{and then again}

tiem to bed said zebadee.

oh well

THANK GOD Iain isn't taking anythink.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
macles said...

Yes, Lopez Murphy. He knew how to turn things upside down alright. Probably still does. When you know Argentine professionals, for instance the diligent, caring, hard working staff of their universities, and when you visit them and learn that the year previously their salaries were cut 18% and that a subsequent cut of 13% had just been announced, and when you realised they had mortgages in dollars, but with interest rates at the time 4 or 5 times those in the US, you thought, 'that's turning things upside down'.

When no shop would accept a 100 peso, or even a 20 peso note (nominally it was still worth 100 or 20 dollars, but the Argentine people know what to make of such promises) you think, 'yes, things are upside down'.

When the consumer goods we can buy so cheaply, cost people with a quarter or a fifth or even less of our average income, 30 percent more than us, you think, 'things are upside down'.

In the end, the cuts in salaries led to a new form of 'cortes' - where roads were 'cut' by angry, demoralised and disgusted people who finally could take no more.

The Argentines are the type example of a people made victims of their own political class. There was no choice - both sides were as bad as each other. Argentina is thus your future, people of the UK. Be prepared...

Anonymous said...

Getting back to the ad, truly it’s EXTREMELY clever & great on the web. But wonder how effective it was/would be on TV?

For starters, visual & audio components are rather bland, though they could be jazzed up as previously suggested. Also, as Iain points out, you must watch more than half or you won't get the message. However, first half may be off-putting to many target voters.

Think this kind of ad would be best as a news story. Run it a few times, post it on the web, make sure the media sees it, then sit back and garner free press.

Most famous example of this is the LBJ "Daisy" ad in the 1964 US presidential election, which featured a little girl counting as she pulled petals off a flower, then transitioned to the countdown for a nuclear missile launch, followed by footage of an H-Bomb explosion. Only ran a few times on a few stations, but the impact was tremendous due to press coverage; was one more nail in AuH2O’s coffin that year.

Here is link to see “Daisy” plus other ads from US presidential races:
www.pbs.org/30secondcandidate

Janejill said...

Very clever - but thought-provoking on an individual basis - cannot see how it could be presented to a public as it would surely lose some of it's intensity

Anonymous said...

From what I know about Argentina, the first speech is rather more accurate than the second.

Awesome steak though, and the most beautiful women in the world imho.

At least he doesn't promise to retake the Falklands to solve Argentina's problems.

Anonymous said...

It is bloody brilliant