Astroturfing forums

Now, I'm a cynical sort, so I may be prone to seeing things that aren't really there, but I tend to find that when I'm searching the web for comments on a product, I can often find forums that I find suspiciously eager to declare their love for one particular brand. While some brands are able to gather fanboys who will declare their love of the product of their own genuine fanaticism for it, others are otherwise so functional (e.g. a waterproofing spray) that you can't imagine them inspiring devotion.

So when I find a forum that discusses a brand only in the most worshipping terms, that uses the full product name repeatedly, and that links and promotes their website at every opportunity -

"BRANDNAME have a great competition on their website (link)!"
"I went to the BRANDNAME website (link) and registered straight away!"
"BRANDNAME is great!"
"BRANDAME is a friend, and it's a companion, And it's the only product you will ever need"

etc (alright, that last one is from a Tom Waits track), it doesn't look like the grass roots devotion that some brands have inspired, it looks like the astroturf of a company trying to fake it. And now I'm not going to buy their product either.

Over-representation in the media?

Chimps, it appears, are in a lot more danger in the wild than people think they are. The problem is that public perception of them is often that they can't be that endangered as, well... they're on TV. All the time. Largely selling us stuff. And even the American Association for the Advancement of Science thought this was a good idea until they were told otherwise.

While in the UK the major chimp-related adverts were the long-running PG Tips series, and they have now moved over to a woollen simian who was previously the only successful thing about ITV's digital efforts. However, advertising executives worldwide can't resist monkeys. Look! They're monkeying around! Hahaha!

As a recent letter to Science, signed by some of the most notable primate researchers, points out:

"In movies, television shows, and advertisements, chimpanzees are often depicted as caricatures of humans, dressed in clothes and/or photographed in contrived poses "

Using them in adverts is not just demeaning (and old, hackneyed and unoriginal) - it also helps threaten the future of chimpanzees in the wild. Because if the public don't think they're in trouble, there is going to be less pressure to save them.

Car ads

Lunch time ramblings (I had breakfast too early, so it's lunchtime now). About the only time of year I'm really exposed to adverts is over the holiday period, where someone else may have the control and not hit mute the moment someone interrupts to try to sell me something.

So I noticed the ads. Car ads in particular (I'm thinking of giving up and getting one). Where once upon a time they may try and show you something of the car - its performance, reliability, whatever - now they seem to be making it up in a lifestyle sense. One car goes through Busby Berkeley style somersaults, leaping hundreds of feet in the air and driving on serenely. Another makes a metallic transformation into giant robotic spiders, big cats, crocodiles, snakes. Both resorting to ludicrously implausible CGI animations to try to give a lifestyle message - this little car is fun, this big SUV is unstoppable.

Oh well, at least it's better than the car advert which has a truly terrible cover version of Dylan's "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall". How much did they pay him for that? Or is it perhaps Bob thinking "you say I can't sing? They won't after they've heard this..." Unfortunately, they don't put up the name of the car until the end, so I've no idea which brand I need to avoid FOR ALL ETERNITY.