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20 July 2009 8 Comments

It doesn’t matter how much you try to control the conversation.

If there is enough passion, rogue voices will find a way to be heard.

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(Photo taken after the Commonwealth Bank increased home loan interest rates during the global financial crisis)

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8 Comments »

Daniel Oyston said:

Why are the rogue voices the ones who often cannot spell?

Instead of agreeing with this voice, the incorrect spelling conjures up an image of an angry, illiterate person, roaming the streets and defacing property and someone who does not have the attention to detail to make sure their message is communicated properly.

If they had of spelt correctly then I think I would be much more on board with the notion that banks are thieves (not thiefs). Instead I just think the bank is smarter than this person and a fool and his money are easily parted.

# 21 July 2009 at 8:01 am

Katherine Liew said:

Whether they had spelt correctly or not, it still creates a distraction – perhaps more so with the incorrect spelling! Your eyes are drawn away from the longer copy and the message is distorted.

# 21 July 2009 at 11:31 am

Daniel Oyston said:

@Katherine – I wouldn’t read the copy anyway. I want my eyes drawn from it and see the graffiti message. The difference now is that instead of thinking “yeah, bloody thieves” I think “that clown is illiterate”

# 21 July 2009 at 12:07 pm

DM said:

He’z Homie, mizpelling is part of his biz.

# 21 July 2009 at 12:32 pm

Katherine Liew said:

On a slightly different note, I found it ironic that someone with the tag ‘MNC’ has defaced the construction site for a new building owned by a multi-national corporation…

@Daniel – I’m usually a spelling and grammar nazi so I’m kinda surprised I don’t feel the same way. I guess the recent teenager in me just laughs at it and says, ‘So you think you’re cool because you whipped out a texta and scrawled on a bus stop? Did you wear your Che t-shirt for the next week just to celebrate your anti-capitalistic triumph?’

…too much Fight Club I think.

# 21 July 2009 at 4:14 pm

Nathan Bush (author) said:

It’s not often that I disagree with the Oyster but I immediately think of what the bank has done to piss this person off enough to do this. I don’t stop to think what kind of person they are. The ad message is shot, all the focus is on the graffiti which takes up less than a sixth of the real estate. But everyone will have different takes on it, would be a great study.

# 21 July 2009 at 4:50 pm

Johnny Rotten said:

It’s not really a multi-channel, behaviour-changing campaign though is it?

Not really much difference from people that stick chewing gum on posters or write messages on toilet walls, is it – humourless, banal, obvious, uneducated.

Until taggers learn the principles of marketing, most consumers will just pass this message by. One tagger that could make a difference was mentioned by Will Anderson on his recent stand-up show:

“I f***ed your mum”

(written underneath)

“Dad, you’re drunk. Go home.”

# 21 July 2009 at 6:07 pm

Nathan Bush (author) said:

@Johnny – Nice example! I agree, the tagger isn’t really getting their message across. But they have effectively blocked the Comm Bank message. Comm Bank obviously didn’t like – there was a new panel up by the afternoon.

# 22 July 2009 at 5:14 pm