Knock it off
Every time it comes on, I want to throw rocks at my television. No, scratch that, every time it comes on, I want to hurl my television out of the window, and throw rocks at it on the way down. Then go downstairs, gather up all the bits, and throw them out of the window again.
I’m talking, of course, about the most offensively stupid advert ever made. Or perhaps, the most stupidly offensive advert ever made. Step forward, Knock-Off Nigel, the film industry’s appalling finger-wagging campaign against DVD piracy.
I’m obliged, naturally, to say that DVD piracy is a Bad Thing. But it says everything about Britain in 2008 that it merits a lavish, high-profile multimedia campaign. Right now, I’m slightly more concerned about Stab Happy Steve or Global Warming Gareth than the effects of someone downloading a dodgy version of The Dark Knight (with Korean subtitles) because he can’t be arsed waiting for the ’steelbook’ (Jesus) version to come out on DVD.
What really infuriates me, though, is that the Knock-Off Nigel campaign is one gigantic knock-off itself. Look, it’s an office, a bit like the one off The Office! A bloke who looks a bit like Martin Freeman! And a bloke in ’70s garb with a moustache playing the flute, just like Will Ferrell in Anchorman! Here’s an advert telling us not to rip off the film industry, by shamelessly doing the exact same thing.
And while we’re at it, for the love of Christ, Knock-Off Nigel!?! I’m fairly sure the notion of ‘Nigel’ as a comedy name died out around the time of the last series of Terry and June, but clearly the advertising agency never got the memo.
Moreover, there’s a really unpleasant undercurrent to the whole thing. If you download movies from the internet, the ad blithely states, then you probably also steal money out of office whiprounds. Er, no. An interesting legal precedent, but one I hope doesn’t catch on. Otherwise we’ll soon be bombarded with publicity campaigns against, say, drink-driving, that suggest anyone who gets in their car after a few pints of Stella is also the sort of person who mugs old ladies.
It’s like they know, deep down, that nobody gives much of a toss about internet piracy (despite the ad’s valiant attempt to imply that it’s some kind of heinous social no-no) so they have to link it to an actual ‘physical’ crime.
Please just make it stop. I can’t afford to keep buying new TVs all the time.
We are listening to The Killers
er, any chance you can put a link up then? Otherwise no-one knows what you’re on about.
Comment by Anonymous — 28/07/08
You mean you haven’t seen it? Count yourself lucky. Anyway, I’ve added the ad from YouTube now. Enjoy.
Comment by Chris Hughes — 28/07/08
BTW, Benjamin Knight, being a ham-fisted idiot I somehow managed to delete your comment. Don’t suppose you want to leave it again?
Comment by Chris Hughes — 28/07/08
Oh, gosh, well you know this is never going to be as good as the original… but I’ll try and remember what I wrote…
Drink drivers may not be muggers but they are occasionally killers, like muggers, so I don’t think it helps your case to reference them; you’re guilty of playing as fast and loose with equivalence as the ad makers.
The ad is terrible though.
While at the cinema and watching that shaky ‘you wouldn’t steal a car’ one for the umpteenth time I thought about how they should do anti-piracy campaigns… as a series of short police procedural dramas (make them good, like Michael Mann would, so that they’ll be worth watching by themselves) that centre on the bust of a pirate-DVD factory and then trace the profits, keeping the preachy message to a single end-credit card. Anyone want to greenlight this with me installed as director?
Comment by Benjamin Knight — 28/07/08
The Knock Off Nigel campaign is bloody irritating, I agree. I couldn’t give a flying fuck about internet piracy.
Is it that much of a problem?, in my experience the type of people who buy Pirate DVD’s from ‘that Chinese bloke outside the cafe’, aren’t the type to go to the Cinema much anyway. And they’re probably pissed off with being ripped off by paying £15 Popcorn and a Coke.
Going off in another direction (sorry), have you seen the Orange ads at the Cinema, fucking genius! That’s how you make commercials.
You can RazzleDazzle my Fantazmagazzle!
Comment by . — 28/07/08
Benjamin, cheers for that.
I think my point still stands that embellishing one crime (or “crime”) by implying that it makes you likely to commit a separate crime is wrong-headed. If you killed someone by drink-driving, that would be as a direct result of the original crime, wouldn’t it?
Anyway, Adam Bowie says it more eloquently than me on his excellent blog.
Re: last comment. I suppose it is a big problem if you’re a movie studio losing out on millions. There again, as you say, there is a big assumption in the idea that everyone who downloads a film or buys a dodgy DVD would otherwise have gone to see it at the cinema.
Comment by Chris Hughes — 29/07/08
Ah, I see… you’re saying it’s better to express the fault with the original act; I completely agree. Any comparison games just lead to confusion, as we’ve kinda proved. These ads are basically just trying to character-assassinate the downloader; they contain no anti-downloading argument whatsoever.
Comment by Benjamin Knight — 29/07/08
this is an intensely irritating song.How are we supposed to react? what are we supposed to do? spy on our mates to see if they are pirates? Who gives a monkeys anyway?as if the film industry is so poor!!
Comment by andy — 1/08/08