Corporately hijacked

The whole fiasco surrounding the "Abstain" campaign that blew up and blew over the last week, which followed on the from the bizarre pricing of the replica All Black Jersey fiasco, which followed on from the "running of the sheep" idea.

These brought disbelief and stunned mutterings from the masses. This wasn't like the red socks campaign of the America's cup. This was a corporate who came up with an idea and then told us, or begged us, exhorted us to join in and be part of their idea.

It's not that we don't buy into things, but these were rubbish of the first order.

Adidas. They claim on one hand to contribute millions in the coffers of NZ rugby. How do they do this? Well they sell merchandise and from the sale of the merchandise they then can sponsor sport. Chicken and Egg stuff. The thing is to be told that we have to pay more for the replica shirt so that they can sponsor NZ sport kind of sticks in the craw.

What did Adidas do? Well they blustered a bit and then did nothing. They told us how much largesse they have with their sponsorship and that we were free to chose to buy overseas or be loyal and buy local.  We couldn't have cake and eat it. Well Adidas did eat ir in terms of brand damage. They didn't change the shirt pricing, or wholesale price (they might have under anon-disclosure agreement of course, but it's doubtful). So all the clowns that wouldn't pay the $220 that Rebel Sports et al were charging would happily pay the $170 that the shirt price dropped to in protest. Overlooked was the fact that this was $50 of profit that Rebel was dropping, not Adidas. Win for Adidas.

The Abstinence effort. As a parody it might have worked. Telecom are not known for their parody advertising. They are a laughing stock, but they are not a comedic advertiser. The problem was that this wasn't a red-socks campaign, the nation didn't buy into it, Telecom thought it would be great to get the nation to buy into an idea. Bad Idea.

For Telecom in particular this was summed up by Richard Boock in the Sunday Star times this week in his article "Bog off corporate carpetbaggers" wherein he says "Maybe it's just that kiwi rugby fans are fed up at being ambushed by faceless corporations? That they're happy to support the All Blacks but draw a line in being claimed by a brand"... yes indeed we're all individuals.