The English-language South African paper Cape Times has launched an awful campaign that is provocative for using major tragic events as a selling point for their daily newspaper.
One image of lower Manhattan (which I have included) shows a calm park scene near the World Trade Center a day before 9-11. Accompanied by the shock slogan “The world can change in a day. Don’t forget your daily edition of in-depth news,” the ad promotes not only a tasteless provocation but also a confusing message, if I read the paper on September 10, 2001, how exactly would I have been prepared for 9-11?
Other notable tragedies they capitalize on are the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the assassination of JFK, and the student uprising in Soweto (which is not so well-known outside Africa, but is commemorated today by a South African national holiday, Youth day, which honors all the young people who lost their lives in the struggle against Apartheid and Bantu Education). Most advertisers can be crass, but fear (perhaps the basest of all emotion) is usually the one advertisers appeal to when they are desperate and there is no other message. So I award this ad campaign the MOST TASTELESS of the year.
Original post on Cherryflava (link).
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