CAMPAIGN DIARY: I’M ONLY A PUNTER BUT ..

Re last week’s punter who ranted about the Gap advertising using

the ’holiday’ theme instead of ’Christmas’. It sounds to me as though

you are extremely defensive about something.

Maybe you are an avid church-goer and are really passionate about what

Christmas ought to mean (ie. non-commercial).

Perhaps you are guilty because you don’t go to church at all, yet can’t

stand the thought of Americans - or anyone else for that matter -

offering an alternative approach to the ’way we do things’ here.

Because, after all, we are the masters aren’t we?

Yet we still sometimes produce copy that makes use of colloquialisms

which we then expect our counterparts around the world to effectively

translate.

I think we are a lot better than Americans at minimising this problem,

but the point is, we’re not angels either.

What’s interesting is your reference to the English disease of

anti-Americanism, saving yourself only by recognising American customer

service (oh, and irrespective of terminology, British customer service

is crap too), but in saving yourself you had to bring that down too.

Another sad, English disease - bringing down successes.

Finally, your most disturbing comment was: ’If you are a guest in

someone else’s country, you respect their traditions and language - even

if you do not believe it yourself.’

Get with it, mate! Generally, people and companies do, the Americans

sometimes mistakenly believe we are the United States of Europe. But

look at the positive contributions, these far outweigh everything

else.

By the way, Happy Hanukkah and may the Lord Ram forever keep you in

peace!

PS. If there is anything wrong with the Gap advertising, it’s that it

seems to be going on a bit now, but that’s all.

This article was first published on Campaign