From André Gattolin:
Belgian people have loved borderline pranks and nonsense humor for a long time. In 1943, during the German occupation, Belgian Nazi opponents published a fake issue of Le Soir, the major French-speaking newspaper in Belgium, making fun of Nazi invaders (with an underground circulation of 300 000 copies!). Most of them were arrested and shot…
Today, in a less dramatic situation, a small Brussels-based advertising agency So Nice, which focuses on viral marketing campaigns, argues that, due to the global economic crunch, one of their 8 employees has to be fired by the end of January and asks Internauts to vote for who it will be! In Reality TV style, the agency created a dedicated website.
I suspect they’ll probably not sack the poor winner of this very special contest. Their real intention appears to be to produce some buzz about the agency, hoping to land some new clients.
Yes, it’s just another example of the advertising industry stealing culture jamming techniques to make money… (not new!) But we must admit, this time, it is pretty well done.
Here’s an article in English about the project.