Cracker: I don't just read the newspaper. I get it.
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Do NZ cigarette packets have the luridly coloured photos of decaying feet and flesh? Tell me they're not real please? Were I a smoker, it'd put me off (don't nobody tell me where I can see images of my liver but...)
I'm thinking this is a wonderful opportunity for someone to start marketing lovely cigarette boxes like my mother used to have. (Not wanky slimline cases, but boxes shaped just like a pack of cigarettes. My mum's was black and gold with embroidered flowers.)
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I'm thinking this is a wonderful opportunity for someone to start marketing lovely cigarette boxes like my mother used to have.
Beaten to the punch! My mother already has a metal Peter Stuyvesant-logo case to cover up her particular brand of decaying flesh.
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And in other media news..
Hasn’t Fairfax done a brilliant job of slowly drip-feeding the Veitch story, and as a result made TVNZ look very shabby?
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Maybe I lost all my principles somewhere between being a lawyer and a journalist...
That's like saying :
"Maybe I lost all my elegance between being a pimply wart-hog and an STD that is visible to the eye"
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And those BNZ ads with the stereotypes, Asian haircut guy, Scottish dad etc, are cleeeearly fake
I think you mean ANZ, and I wouldn't be too quick to judge on that. ANZ take pride in using actual staff in their ads, so I'd hesitate to assume that they don't use real customers too.
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Do NZ cigarette packets have the luridly coloured photos of decaying feet and flesh?
Hell yes -- my response, I'm a depraved nicotine addict who's had skankier looking offal for breakfast. Someone's not bringing their A-game here. :)
Absolutely, Craig. I often wonder what my lungs look like, and then just shrug. After all, I could be a meth addict instead. Now that's horrendous. I've just read Tweak by Nic Sheff, and am just about to finish Beautiful Boy by his father, David. You want horror? Plenty to be found in both those books.
I wonder if it'd be easier now just to ban cigarettes completely.
Where do I begin with this one? I know, I won't. We have, after all, been through a couple of huge discussions around peoples' rights to do what they wish to their bodies, as long as they aren't affecting other people adversely. I have to tell you, Andrew, that when I heard that Niue were looking to ban cigarettes, my immediate thought was "Poor bastards."
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peoples' rights to do what they wish to their bodies, as long as they aren't affecting other people adversely
Two words (or three, depending upon one's particular brand of pedantry): Second-hand smoke.
I will acknowledge your right to smoke at such a time as you can do it in my presence entirely without me having to be subjected to your pollutant by-products. My right to clean air trumps your right to abuse your body.
Until that time, I reserve the right to demand that you go outside, or be forbidden to smoke in my presence when in public. And since my fresh-air habit doesn't demonstrably lead to expensive health problems I win :) -
I have hated the McCallum and Partners advert from the first time I saw it. This probably wasn't intended by the agency, but I got an impression of incredibly lame enforced bonhomie a la most office "casual dress days". This may have something to do with my extremely low tolerance for Elemeno P. I guess dull commercial rock and shouting "Let's Go Crazy!" is about as close to hip as you can drag a firm like Telecom.
I also noted the almost-too-perfect age, gender and ethnic diversity of McCallum and Partners' assembled staff, but in the end wrote this off as Telecom smartly picking the ideal photogenic business for their purposes before they cracked out the drinks and the cameras.
Now that I know it's all fake, of course, I can safely abandon my resentment of McCallum and Partners - that suspiciously perfect, cheesy "we are so casual on Fridays" fat-cat firm - and focus my hatred upon Telecom, where it belongs by right and tradition.
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Matthew, with all due respect, I would point you in the direction of a thread which I can't be bothered looking for. Anyone? We've all discussed this to death - hence the reference in my post. I apologise if you weren't here to vent your views on the subject, but I've said my piece in that thread, as have others. So you'll excuse me if I don't rejoin that particular fray.
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"I also noted the almost-too-perfect ..."
Especially considering this was supposed to be after work drinks. To get that liquored up to act the fool & keep instep is impossible for a whole office, moi however.
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I will acknowledge your right to smoke at such a time as you can do it in my presence entirely without me having to be subjected to your pollutant by-products.
You know, Matthew, I feel exactly the same during flu season when I have to share an enclosed, air-conditioned workspace with people who think they can show up -- with streaming eyes and nose, and a hacking cough -- and assume everyone else is magically immune to their viral load. (Even worse when said person isn't exactly a model of kitchenette and bathroom hygiene to start with.) Thoughtless shits are thoughtless shits, regardless of whether they partake in the demon leaf or not.
But like Jackie, I really think this topic has been kicked to death elsewhere. So I'll bid this particular argument a sincerely respectful adieu. :)
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I will acknowledge your right to smoke at such a time as you can do it in my presence entirely without me having to be subjected to your pollutant by-products.
I, on the other hand, would like to invite Jackie over to my house to blow her second-hand smoke into the clean air of my lounge. I, as a non-smoker, will even provide her with a nice vintage ashtray from my nice old vinyl bar. For I? Do not give a fuck. (Why doesn't everyone get all activist and scapegoaty about petrol fumes, incidentally? I mean, I know I asked that in the other thread too, but...)
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Why doesn't everyone get all activist and scapegoaty about petrol fumes, incidentally?
Oh, I do get right fucked-off when I'm following a vintage Stagecoach bus up Symonds St on my bicycle, or overtaking it, assuming I can get enough oxygen through the clouds of diesel smoke. There's certainly not much green about a lot of the bus fleet in Auckland, and plenty of people do pass comment on it. I'd be quite happy if a condition of keeping their access to the valuable routes was mandatory minimum-age requirements for the fleet. I swear some of the buses are older than I am!
As for the smoking thing, yes I probably have missed past threads on the topic. I'm quite happy to leave it alone, but was simply pointing out that for all the bleating that smokers do about their "rights" many of them are perfectly happy to make sure that everyone around them must share their habit regardless of whether or not they want to.
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Especially considering this was supposed to be after work drinks. To get that liquored up to act the fool & keep instep is impossible for a whole office, moi however.
Yeah, although they could be a Christian firm, who I believe are able to get High on Jesus, without losing their coordination. But then they'd probably be dancing to um, Evermore? Are they Christian?
I'm pretty sure you don't see any actual drinks in the McCallum & Partners Friday drinks.
And yes, ANZ sorry, I thought that when I typed it, but couldn't be arsed checking my facts for the sake of a slightly different acronym (and an equally foreign owned bank). And do I doubt they are real people in the ANZ ads? Yes, I doubt it very much... you just don't find crazy talent like that in your customer base.
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many of them are perfectly happy to make sure that everyone around them must share their habit regardless of whether or not they want to
It's funny how anecdata can give you entirely different impressions of the same issue. My observation is that most of them have been shamed into submission by the vigilantes shouting 'unclean! unclean!' They're all shivering outside at any social gathering, in their dedicated leper colonies...
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As for the smoking thing, yes I probably have missed past threads on the topic. I'm quite happy to leave it alone, but
Might be because I mused about banning ciggies completely. I will point out that that was a tongue in cheek response to watching the lurid cancer advertisement, and the lurid decaying body parts on packs.
I suspect they've reached the apex (or nadir?) of (probably expensive) discouraging campaigns & what's next?
Do these ads play through Mad Men?
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It's funny how anecdata can give you entirely different impressions of the same issue. My observation is that most of them have been shamed into submission by the vigilantes shouting 'unclean! unclean!' They're all shivering outside at any social gathering, in their dedicated leper colonies...
Depends enormously on the smoker. I was unfortunate enough to be at a party last weekend where a hardy (thoughtful?) few went outside while the rest sat in the lounge and puffed away.
And my observation was based on the reaction to the banning of smoking in licensed establishments. Smoker after smoker wailing about how their "rights" were being infringed by being ordered to respect the right of the majority of the population to breathe clean air. Things have changed somewhat since then, and I suspect that law change was a significant factor, but by no means are all smokers now considerate and thoughtful and willing to keep their fumes away from the non-smokers. -
I suspect they've reached the apex (or nadir?) of (probably expensive) discouraging campaigns & what's next?
And the big-bacco companies really care?..over here there are two current campaigns..one tells you that ciggies make you virile, the other, my favourite, tells the viewer that the best way to kill the flu is with a fag or two.
Seriously....
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They're all shivering outside at any social gathering, in their dedicated leper colonies...
I love those leper colonies. Innings break in the cricket at the Caketin, and all the smokers run up to that little corner of the concourse they're allowed, and talk to each other. Back steps at a party is always the best conversation zone.
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Do these ads play through Mad Men?
Heh. Yeah, anyone who thinks current smokers are 'inconsiderate' might have a nervous breakdown if they got into a De Lorean and headed back forty-fifty years...
We've come a long way, baby. ;)
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Depends enormously on the smoker. I was unfortunate enough to be at a party last weekend where a hardy (thoughtful?) few went outside while the rest sat in the lounge and puffed away.
And when I'm a guest in other people's homes, I either accept their rules or go home if the company and house rules are that objectionable. Not really that complicated.
but by no means are all smokers now considerate and thoughtful and willing to keep their fumes away from the non-smokers.
There are five magic words I respond to very most favourably, Matthew: "Excuse me, please and thank you".
I respond extraordinarily badly to rude and downright impertinent harangues from people who don't like what I'm doing in designated smoking areas. Sorry if this wounds the ego of 99.999 recurring of the human race, but my life is not part of vast conspiracy to spite you. You're simply not that important.
Consideration, and plain civility, works both ways.
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I love those leper colonies... Back steps at a party is always the best conversation zone.
Emma, why do I agree with nearly everything you say about any given topic? It's... kind of freaking me out. :)
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And do I doubt they are real people in the ANZ ads? Yes, I doubt it very much... you just don't find crazy talent like that in your customer base.
Oh, come on. A handful out of people out of hundreds-of-thousands isn't exactly impossible. Statistically it's almost a certainty that you'll be able to find a few people who are your customers and can be presented to a camera, when that's your sample. It's not like they have a hundred customers and found six or seven who can be used for adverts, they've got a noteworthy percentage of the population to utilise. All the major banks have enough customers to be assured of finding some who can be used for advertising purposes.
They used actual staff and customers for their '03 campaign, according to this press release, so why not do it again? The impression given is very much one of it being real staff and customers, and they've done it before.
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And when I'm a guest in other people's homes, I either accept their rules or go home if the company and house rules are that objectionable.
I left far earlier than I'd anticipated, largely because of that situation. I know it's their rules, fair enough, but my point was that not all smokers go outside. They weren't even the majority of the people in the room.
I respond extraordinarily badly to rude and downright impertinent harangues from people who don't like what I'm doing in designated smoking areas.
Fair enough. At the time of the law change, though, there were no licensed premises (save for some restaurants) that weren't "designated smoking areas". You could indulge wherever you so desired, pretty much, and there was nothing the majority of the population could do about it. We couldn't ask you to leave, because you weren't doing anything wrong. Instead we suffered in silence, and if it was a meal out we left as quickly as possible after finishing.
Oh, and no matter how politely I ask I'm unlikely to persuade a smoker in public to stub out. If I'm unfortunate enough to be next to one at Christmas in the Park, for example, I have to like it or lump it. So please don't pretend that smokers cannot get in my face if I ask them nicely, because that's simply not true.
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Oh, and Craig, while I'm sure you're a considerate smoker, as are most of the handful of them I know, there are plenty of obnoxious smokers out there.
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