Edmonton radio station asks if rape victims "share any blame"

Wait, what? 630 CHED is an Edmonton talk radio station. Today's online poll asks, "It's very controversial but do you think victims of sexual assaults share any blame for what happens?"

Here are the results, as of 1:00 EDT:

I don't know what's worse, the fact that they asked this loaded question or that a third of their respondents want to blame women for being raped.

The station's previous polls run from the trivial ("Will you be celebrating world dog day?")  to impossibly oversimplified takes on big issues ("How would you resolve the problem in Syria?"). However, I failed to see anything else to suggest that victims of violent crime are partially responsible for being attacked.

Here are some suggestions for upcoming polls:

"Do the victims of a home invasion share any of the blame for living in a nice house?" 

"Does the mugging victim share some of the blame for talking on an iPhone in public?" 

"Did the victim of bullying bring it on himself by not fitting in?" 

"Should that fatal hit-and-run victim known better than to walk on the sidewalk after last call?"

Thanks to @TrinaMLee (via @LadySnarksalot) for the "twip":

.@630CHED Rape was an issue long before nightclubs, back alleys and miniskirts existed. Nobody ever deserves it. Your poll is disgusting.
— Trina M. Lee (@TrinaMLee) April 10, 2014

Carl's Jr. gets around sexy TV ad ban with descriptive radio spot

You've got to hand it to Carl's Jr./Hardee's — they just won't give up using sex to sell their burgers, no matter what gets in their way.

In New Zealand, according to the National Business Review, the barrier was a broadcast TV ban on their "BBQ's Best Pair" ad by the Commercial Approvals Bureau for using "sexual appeal in an exploitative and degrading manner" and "using sex to sell an unrelated product". (Makes one wonder how many consumer ads from the Americas, Australia, or Asia get approved there.)

Rather than give up the brand's international creative, national owner Restaurant Brands just hired an American actor to supply a play-by-play description of the banned video. It ends up being, thanks to the imagination, even dirtier:



Sticking it to advertising regulators probably scored the brand lots of points with their target market, who they describe as "young hungry guys.”

The radio version was done by NZ's Special Group. Creative Director Tony Bradbourne boasts, “it’s just great humour which is on tone and on brand for our audience.”

I guess we'll see what fallout — if any — happens next over this public baiting of the regulator (and New Zealand women). But at least they were creative about it.

Canadian radio station offers "No Nickelback Guarantee"

Just saw this on the cover of today's Ottawa edition on Metro. Live 88.5 also promises to be "Katy Free" and "Kardashian Free", but the Nickelback hate is particularly poignant in their home country.

Wedding photographer claims her work was stolen for a "quickie marriage" radio contest

Ottawa wedding photographer Barbi Guild Cameron took to Facebook recently, claiming that local radio station HOT 89.9 took one of her photos, without permission or payment, for use in a partnership marketing kit:

The new Hot 89.9 out of Ottawa Canada runs a contest every spring where by couples get married in the span of 24 hours. I think it is a horrible, horrible contest and devalues marriage. It is certainly a contest I do NOT want my name or branding associated with. Imagine my shock when I see my image on their media/marketing kit info that entices potential advertisers to the contest to pay big bucks to be a part of it.

The image is from the blog of Barbara Ann Studios, where it appeared in a 2009 post about the wedding location of Strathmere.

Ms. Cameron continues:

I contacted the the radio station and they did not immediately get back to me. So then I contacted their owner, NewsCap Radio (who own ALOT radio stations across the country). They contacted me immediately expressing that they take copyright issue VERY SERIOUSLY. Well, everything was very serious until I mentioned that they were to compensate me for the illegal use of my image (AND ALTERED USE I MIGHT ADD). That is when the email tone turned negative. 

The Vice President of NewsCap Radio offered me $40. When I turned him down, he emailed me the following: 

"Barb you were kind enough to provide us with a few definitions. Here is one I just looked up:extortionNOUN The practice of obtaining something, esp. money through force or threatsSYNONYMS Blackmail-exaction
You are obviously a very talented photographer, I would stick with that. Extortion is not your thing.CheersSB" 

If they would have approached me to use the image, we would have had a chance to discuss the commercial use of it (IF I allowed the use of the image in the first place). However, once the image is used, I am at the disadvantage because the image is already out there. 

I no longer want money from them. I instead want this story to be shared and shared and shared and shared. Maybe, just maybe, some marketing person at a company will read it and it will educate them to not STEAL INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY just because Google barfed it up on their screen. 

 I can only imagine the horror that someone who counts on wedding business felt when her work — and her clients — were used to promote a contest that in her opinion "devalues marriage".

If all the above is true, it's quite conceivable that some graphic designer at HOT 89.9 figured nobody would ever know if they "borrowed" an image for a piece that was never supposed to be seen in public. But it's the alleged reaction from the Newcap VP that is really troubling.

Let's see how this plays out.

Thanks to Marc A for the tip.

"Feminist" Nirvana ends up on sexist radio billboards

I've been observing the latest campaign by Ottawa classic rock radio station The Bear for a few months now. Originally, it showed billboards with two bare-backed women and a hairy bare-backed man, the women with band names tattooed on their skin and the guy with one shaved in. It was stupid, but mostly harmless.

Then I guess they decided to drop the humour, and go straight to the sex:

You can't really expect sensitivity and brilliance from ads aimed at aging Gen-X and Boomer male wannabe rockers. I'm in that market, after all. But I still found it pretty primitive of them.

The use of the Nirvana "brand" however, made me think of the late Kurt Cobain. Wasn't he supposed to have been a feminist hero?

From The Daily Beast:

Female fans detected a humanistic view of women in the lyrics and certainly in Cobain’s public pro-feminist persona. Cobain was an early advocate of Sassy magazine, the late '80s through mid-'90s magazine aimed at teenage girls that had a definite feminist bent. He also enjoyed provoking and mocking American gender anxieties, engaging in previously unheard of behavior in a major rock star—glam rock aside—such as wearing women’s clothes and making out with male bandmates in public, just daring people to have a problem with it. “I really picked up on the sensitivity and girl-positive nature of Nirvana,” explained Kate, a 30-year-old from Toronto, “it was important to me to see a famous, attractive man share some ideas about feminism with me and be unapologetic and forthright about it.”

And then there are Cobain's own troubled words:

“Yeah, all Isms (sic) feed off one another but at the top of the food chain is still the white, corporate, macho, strong ox male. Not redeemable as far as I’m concerned. I mean, classism is determined by sexism because the male decides whether all other isms still exists (sic). Its up to men. I’m just saying that people can’t deny any ism or think that some are more or less subordinate except for sexism… I still think that in order to expand on all other isms, sexism has to be blown wide open…but there are thousands of green minds, young gullable (sic) 15 year old boys out there just starting to fall into the grain of what they’ve been told of what a man is supposed to be and there are plenty of tools to use. The most effective tool is entertainment” 

And now, 18 years after he killed himself, the band he founded is being used as part of a campaign telling the new generation what a woman is "supposed to be": pure T&A, sexually available and enjoying his gaze.

It's only rock and roll, right? Except it's not the '70s anymore. Unironic, unartistic, sexually exploitative  marketing. Weren't we supposed to grow out of this?

And the most Effed ad of #FdAdFriday goes to...

...this barfworthy spot for French radio station Le Mouv':



Copyranter translates the kicker:

"Not everything was better before."
"My time. My radio."

You see, condoms were once made of sheep guts. (Some still are.) And listening to classic rock is kind of like putting an intestine on your johnson.

Okay.

Radio station insults men by calling them women #FdAdFriday

I wonder if this kind of shit will ever end.

This "joke" was posted on the Facebook wall of Chez 106, an Ottawa radio station that plays classic rock.

You see, Ottawa has a hockey rivalry with Toronto, which leads to this kind of trash talk. Which can be fun, as long as you don't go trashing half the human species while you're at it.

Calling men "women" as an insult is probably as old as the hills. Kids still use it in the playground, I'm sure. But that doesn't make it OK. And the menstrual reference, often perceived as a women's "weakness" by assholes, is also a dick move.

Okay, my rant is done. I'll let Iggy Pop have the last word:

Via Slutwalk Toronto

Texas gun school spot may be the year's most idiotic ad

Everything's bigger in Texas. Even the assholes.

“If you are a socialist liberal and/or voted for the current campaigner-in-chief, please do not take this class,” Mr. Keller said in the ad. “You’ve already proven that you cannot make a knowledgeable and prudent decision as required under the law. Also, if you are a non-Christian Arab or Muslim, I will not teach you the class. Once again, with no shame, I am Crockett Keller.”

For some people, this kind of hate speech would be the kiss of death. But to this Texas gun instructor, it's just common sense:

“Why would I teach people who have sworn the annihilation of the United States and who can lie, cheat, steal and murder Americans in order to further Islam?” Mr. Keller said. “Why would I arm someone like that? Why would I enable them to carry a weapon legally? I don’t want to be a part of that. I’m sorry those flight instructors didn’t have the same hindsight to know that these guys were up to no good, and they shouldn’t be teaching them, and they should have refused.”

Where's his head? I think it's up under his gun...

The Texas Department of Public Safety is investigating if this warrants him losing his licence due to breaking anti-discrimination statutes.


Via AdFreak and the New York Times

Sleeveface meets augmented reality

Another Sleeveface sighting! And this one uses classic album covers to augment reality old-school.

Pretty cool.

I would have preferred to see Country Life, though...

There are way too many of these ads, by Leg Paris.

But I imagine it was hard for the creative team to stop, once they got started:

Via I Believe in Advertising

Sleeveface: the greatest photo meme lives on in radio station ads

Long before today's trend of stupid photo memes, there was Sleeveface. Although earlier examples exist, the fad was named and made famous in 2007 by proud Welshman Carl Morris.

Following the success of his user-generated site, in 2008 Morris and his friend John Rostron published a book of Sleeveface pictures. Having fallen in love with the concept from the start, a bunch of us at Acart Communications had submitted our own, photographed by our colleague Rob Wilson. Most of them made it into the book.

So sliiiiide over here, and give me a moment...

I've always wanted to find a way to use Sleeveface in a campaign. So I was a little bummed out when I passed this billboard in Ottawa last week:

It's a little obvious to do it for a classic rock station, but I guess I'm glad that the meme lives on.

Close-ups below:

Jammin' in the cubicle

Sisters are doin' it for themselves?

From Drive-Time to Human Trafficking - Canadian Edition

Hey, look! A radio station is offering guys in an affluent Commonwealth country the chance to "win" a beautiful Slavic mail-order bride!

The Bear, "Edmonton's Best Rock", is working with a mail-order bride company in Russia to "give away" a hot and compliant hooker sex slave wife:

"But we're not going to give this opportunity to just anybody.... to weed out the no-hopers and time-wasters, we've developed the application form below. If you're interested in potential holy matrimony with a hot foreign chick, fill it out to the best of your abilities. If we pick you, you'll be heading to Russia with 13 nights' accomodation[ sic], return air fare, and $500 spending money to meet the lucky lady!"

Here are some of the entries of would-be winners:

"A perfect wife is one who are not like women from Canada and USA, because women from these countries are too spoiled, always want their way and will take everything from a man if they are not happy and leave the man."
- Michael Okeymaw from Hobbema

"Tired of goddamn vacant entitled Alberta princesses"
- Damian from Edmonton

 

"MY PENIS IS LONGER THAN MY ARM"

- SHANE from DRAYTON 

Wow... does this disgusting and dehumanizing publicity stunt ever seem familiar...

That was last March, when a New Zealand station ran the same contest, but with a Ukrainian "bride" as the prize.

In that case, not only did NZ get bad press all over the western world, but attracted the topless ire pf Ukrainian women's protest group FEMEN, whose main objective is to stamp out human trafficking. They jokingly threatened the winner, known only as Greg, with castration if he came to Kiev to claim his human prize. They had this posted slapped all over Auckland:

OUCH!

Greg apparently turned down the free trip to Kiev.

When the FEMEN women were protesting the contest, they used terms like "wildman" to denigrate the stranger from a strange land.

And they were right. In Eastern Europe, "matchmaking" services often serve as cover for sex tourism. But the barbarians in Auckland—and now Edmonton—do women around the world even more of a disservice by treating the foreign women as sexually objectified and obedient "perfect wives".

This kind of thing should not be happening here. This is Canada. And I am ashamed to have a story like this make the international news. (I read about it in Jezebel.)

Fortunately, I'm not alone. Alberta’s Employment and Immigration minister, Thomas Lukaszu, pulled all of his ministry's advertising from The Bear 100.3 FM Tuesday in protest.

From Drive-Time to Human Trafficking?

The Daily Telegraph reports that a zany radio contest by New Zealand's The Rock FM has raised a little hell (and not the good kind).

"Panties in a twist" because all manly men are assumed to be cool with it.

That's right. The prize is a woman. And not just any woman, but one of the "beautiful genuine Ukraine ladies looking for love and marriage with Kiwi Men" offered up by the Endless Love Agency.

After initial criticism from — well, pretty much anyone with a functioning brain — the radio station sarcastically changed the title of their promotion to:

Note gift tag. How thoughtful!

NZ social activist Sue Bradford is quoted as saying The Rock FM "takes commercial radio to new depths."

"It is unusual and somewhat disturbing that a commercial entity would commercialise what should be one of the most meaningful human relationships and actually offer it as a prize for a radio show," she said.

But there's more than sexism and bad taste at play here. The Ukraine is now a well-known destination for sex tourists from wealthier countries, and "Mail-order Bride" operations are well-known panderers. (As the women are expected to offer "test drives" to prospective grooms.)

This has caught the attention of FEMEN, a Ukrainian radical feminist group who use their own sexuality to protest human trafficking — and sexist culture in general.

They turned out in the freezing Kiev winter to draw attention in their usual way:

[Add "must be a bit nippy over there" joke here.]

These are the same women who have pledged to castrate the Kiev subway groper (if they ever catch him).

The man who makes Rick Rockwell look like a romantic.

So to the contest winner, "Greg" (above) best of luck on your voyage into the glamorous world of sleazy marketing, human trafficking, and international shame.

Or as FEMEN puts it: