Hoaxes And Advertising

There is a proliferation of spoof or hoax adverts going around the Internet lately. One such is the recent VW Polo Ad:

"A suicide bomber blows himself up inside the car, but the car is so tough that it contains the explosion. Seems to push the envelope a bit too much to be an actual ad commissioned by Volkswagen, and sure enough it's not. It's a 'spec ad', created by leeanddan.com. Spec ads are 'speculative ads' created to show potential clients what kind of work you're capable of doing. In other words, Volkswagen never endorsed this material."

The company caught wind of the fake ad and reacted by trying to stop the spread of the spoof across the Internet. Right. That's like an ant trying to stop a bulldozer. There were threatening emails, denial press releases, and cease and desist letters. What did this accomplish? Not much. All it did was to force the spoof and the conversation about the spoof to race around the Internet even faster. It's everywhere. It's now a permanent fixture on thousands of websites.

I was reading an article in the Times of Zambia that shows how Chawama residents use hoax odd stories to highlight public interest issues.

Apparently, the residents of this township in Zambia have a long tradition of using all sorts of bizarre and humorous stories that spread like wild fire and, which rapidly bring people together to appreciate the seriousness of any public interest issue.

"In 2002 when perpetual roadblocks became a thorn in the flesh of Lusaka bus drivers, a strategy was mapped out in Chawama to end the problem.

The story was told of a driver who plunged his minibus in the infamous Blue Water dam with seven police officers dying inside with him?

It was all lies but, according to minibus driver, Given Kafwimbi, "It somehow helped us because police reduced on roadblocks along the Kafue road."

The Blue Water hoax tragedy spread so wildly that police spokesperson Brenda Muntemba had to issue up to five Press statements within the same month refuting the claims.

Still people did not believe her until some concerned stone crushers around the dam confirmed there had not been any minibus which plunged into the dam."