Now Donald Trump is trolling Scotland as well

The Drum reports that Donald Trump, creator of the American election "October surprise" that ended up making a fool of him, likes to spread his special brand of idiocy to other countries as well.

The Donald (man, I miss Spy Magazine!) posted the above picture on his Facebook page with the caption, "I guess they don’t have freedom of the press in Scotland. We created this ad and the ASA would not allow us to publish it. I don’t know what is wrong with it, it seems factually accurate to me."

Alex Salmond is the First Minister of Scotland. His government has committed Scotland to legislation on emission reduction and the generation of renewable energy. And his government did release convicted terrorist Abdelbaset ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, "based on the rules and regulations of Scots Law and the reports of the Parole Board for Scotland, the Prison Governor, and the Scottish Prison Service Director of Health and Care Dr Andrew Fraser" to Libya on compassionate grounds when he was dying of prostate cancer.

But for someone so concerned about "truth", Mr. Trump is pretty fast and loose with his own facts.

...a spokesperson from the ASA [the British Advertising Standards Authority] told The Drum: “I can confirm that the ASA has not banned the ad that Donald Trump refers to. 

“We don’t ban ads from appearing. We respond to concerns about ads once they’re in the public domain. 

“The advertiser may have sought pre-publication advice on the likelihood of the ad being acceptable under the Advertising Code. This Copy Advice service is provided, for free and in confidence, by our sister organisation, the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP). 

We can’t comment on whether advice was sought or given as the service is confidential.
“However, I should stress that Copy Advice is exactly that, advice. It is non-binding and Copy Advice does not ‘ban’ ads either.”

In other words, the ad was submitted to an advisory panel that tells advertisers whether or not the ASA is likely to cause members of the public to complain to the ASA, which would then consider the complaint against British advertising standards, and act accordingly. 

They do kind of "ban" ads, through ad industry self-regulation. They make some pretty ridiculous judgements, but they are no more of a threat to "free speech" than other industries' self-regulating bodies in the United States, such as the Motion Picture Association of America or the now-defunct Comics Code Authority.

As my colleague Kerry pointed out, Donald Trump is developing a golf course in Scotland, and the proposed turbines are "spoiling his view".

Let's just hope that the UK's Committee of Advertising Practice also told Mr. Trump, in confidence, to fire his Art Director.

F'd Ad Fridays: "Apple Dumplings" and other random synonyms for boobs

This video is f'd in kind of a good way, since I support the cause:



The awkward burlesque. The synonyms. The cows. The babies as props. The breast pumps. The mysterious guy with the cue cards, who warranted an encore...

Okay, then...

Step away from the alcohol!

The English-speaking world's relationship with alcohol has changed significantly in the last few generations. I was reminded of this when I found this old hand-painted glass slide from a travelling preacher's "magic lantern" show:

Alcohol then, in the days of the Women's Temperance Union, was the curse of the working class. The moralistic view was that it turned men to vice, robbed their families of household income, and resulted in domestic abuse. (All of which were, to some extent, true.)

This attitude soon led to Prohibition, which in turn gave rise to organized crime in North America. That didn't work out so well.

In the post WWII era, drinking got sophisticated, and being a functional alcoholic was not necessarily a career-limiter.

(yes, I know that's modern satire)

Fast forward to the now, and alcohol still brings with it a host of issues, including dependency, poor health, impaired driving, and other horrible things people do when they're inebriated.

So what should we do, prohibit it again? Or can we actually get people to exercise self-control around demon liquor?

This brings me to today's featured campaign, which I saw on The Drum. It's from National Health Birmingham East and North, and it takes the smart approach of encouraging harm reduction through simple lifestyle changes:

I love the '60s style design, but I'm an even bigger fan of social marketing strategy. The campaign site just asks its target audience of older, stay-at-home women to go three days a week without drinking.

From the homepage:

Nowadays, many of us have got used to drinking regularly through the week. However evidence shows that this everyday drinking can lead to serious liver disease, and can actually be more harmful to the liver than the ‘binge drinking’ most of us associate with unhealthy drinking. The 3 days booze free challenge is a great way to reduce the risks to your health. Just having 3 booze free days a week gives your liver a break and can help reduce the risk of alcohol related illness.

Okay, so there's some 1960s sexism there as well, with all the examples of housework. I can't see any reason to defend that. But for what it's worth, according to Britain's Institute of Alcohol studies, in recent years, the growth in average consumption and in heavy drinking has been more marked in women than men. And with unemployment high in the UK, more than 30% of working-aged women (pdf) are not employed outside the home.