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Extremely Offensive BenQ Ad

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rezza, Taiwan is not governed by People's Republic of China. The current Taiwanese government lost the civil war after World War 2 and fleed to Tawian and it's isolated from China ever since and is a defacto sovern state. (democratic, freely elects their house representative and presidents I might add)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_China

Back to the topic, Benq is indeed a Taiwanese company. They just do most of manufacturing in China like most of everything else in the world. That web has the .cn which indicated it's a China domain and most likely operated by it's Chinese branch.
 
Of course that is WTC. Look at it, there's nothing else it could be. Oddly enough what are those 'war of the worlds' lame ass looking UFO's to the right.

That is definitely not cool and in poor taste IMO (not to mention the boy's fashion sense).
 
Wow, what the hell is wrong with them.

I handed Steve's news link off to a blogger friend of mine (a link to [H] will be included in the blog of course). This should get more people aware of this rediculous ad.
 
Besides the fact that it resembles the WTC and is in very poor taste, I don't even get the connection they are trying to make with the add. Destruction, and an MP3 player? When I first saw it I didn't get what they were trying to sell.
 
bboy said:
(not to mention the boy's fashion sense).
Click to expand...

Well thats Chinese fashion. Most Chinese youngsters wear these types of clothes. I guess people in different parts of world have different taste in clothing.
 
I agree its in VERY poor taste and will think twice about buying anything from BenQ.

Kind of like the retard that thought it was cool to make a OJ special and book on how he would have done it...
 
Brent_Justice said:
Besides the fact that it resembles the WTC and is in very poor taste, I don't even get the connection they are trying to make with the add. Destruction, and an MP3 player? When I first saw it I didn't get what they were trying to sell.
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Well apparently after reading all these posts it signifies the destruction of their revenue from this point forward.
 
Brent_Justice said:
Besides the fact that it resembles the WTC and is in very poor taste, I don't even get the connection they are trying to make with the add. Destruction, and an MP3 player? When I first saw it I didn't get what they were trying to sell.
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I completely agree, I couldn't tell what the hell the goal of this ad was and what the person displayed had to do with it.
 
Brent_Justice said:
Besides the fact that it resembles the WTC and is in very poor taste, I don't even get the connection they are trying to make with the add. Destruction, and an MP3 player? When I first saw it I didn't get what they were trying to sell.
Click to expand...

This is a quote from the first page, maybe this helps?

wolfhero said:
FYI: The simplified Chinese(used in China) on the middle right hand side reads:
"Even if the world ends(destoried), I still belives in music"
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I actually find some of the views expressed here as much more offensive than that ad.

Most of you guys don't even know what the ad says in the first place! You are simply are guessing their intent is bad because they are not American, and you don't understand what they wrote.

I have seen so many commercials in the US that had pictures of the WTC disaster and I don't hear any complaining about that! Some of you just need to open your minds a little.
 
EXreaction said:
I actually find some of the views expressed here as much more offensive than that ad.

Most of you guys don't even know what the ad says in the first place! You are simply are guessing their intent is bad because they are not American, and you don't understand what they wrote.

I have seen so many commercials in the US that had pictures of the WTC disaster and I don't hear any complaining about that! Some of you just need to open your minds a little.
Click to expand...

It doesn't matter what they have to say, using the image of the destroyed WTC to sell an MP3 player is just plain stupid. Their intent has nothing to do with that fact that the ad is really insensitive due to the imagery alone.

Them not being American isn't an excuse, it's not like American companies use pictures of buildings destroyed by Tsunamis to sell MP3 players.
 
wolfhero said:
rezza, Taiwan is not governed by People's Republic of China. The current Taiwanese government lost the civil war after World War 2 and fleed to Tawian and it's isolated from China ever since and is a defacto sovern state. (democratic, freely elects their house representative and presidents I might add)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_China

Back to the topic, Benq is indeed a Taiwanese company. They just do most of manufacturing in China like most of everything else in the world. That web has the .cn which indicated it's a China domain and most likely operated by it's Chinese branch.
Click to expand...

Thanks for info. I used to hear about the issues Taiwan Govt had with mainland China and didn't actually know the details.
 
That's not even a likeness. That absolutely IS the WTC. But, I really don't think a major company would do anything like that on purpose. They probably have no idea that that is where their picture came from. It looks like a foreign ad made by and for foreign people. I've heard of people in other countries who, when shown video of 9/11, were convinced it was a movie and refused to believe otherwise.

Give 'em a shot to defend themselves before roasting them. It might just be an error. Like someone else said, they probably just googled "burning building" and used the best shot they could find.

Also, if we're going to roast these guys, then go after every news show that ever ran a scary tease related to 9/11. You should also call every congressman or senator that used 9/11 imagery and references in their ads. Also, call youtube, because I'm sure that Benny Hill 9/11 video is hosted on there a few times.
 
Um...Holy shit.

I was going to post about how that building in the add does not look like the WTC buildings,
but then I looked at the comparison in this thread, and totally changed my mind.

Ben Q marketing department said:
Instead of having our art department creating a destroyed building from scratch,
I wonder if there is a real destroyed building we could just photoshop into our ad?
Click to expand...

:mad: :mad:
 
MacDad said:
they probably just googled "burning building" and used the best shot they could find.
Click to expand...

Probably. As some one mentioned that part of Chinese text says "end of world". If you Google end of world it does show WTC burning pictures on the first page and the second. So that might be it....
 
It does offend some, but keep in mind the artist just found the image, did some Photoshop and slapped a badly dressed kid on the front.

That ad wouldn't come out here.

I'm not offended by it. Where most people in that territory don't even know what the WTC looks like and never would have drawn the connection. And ::surprise::, people outside of the US don't feel the same way as we do when it comes to the WTC.
 
It's clearly the WTC. No doubt about it. Those images are seared on my brain.

Now. . . I'm about as right-wing regarding 9/11 as they come. I don't think we've done nearly enough about what happened on 9/11 and I can't believe that our country has already settled back into "Let's be nice and maybe they'll stop hating us" type of policies on both sides of the partisan divide.

Having said that. This ad does not offend me. Especially in context (with the chinese translated).

Now, if the meaning of the ad was: "Go terrorists! Good job on 9/11!". . . then I'd be outraged.

But the intent of the ad is to show a devastated world (in which music prevails!) and they happened to use an image from the WTC (which are ubiquitous). Uh. . . so what? Too soon? Well, I think it's too soon for us to start forgetting 9/11. And I've had a problem with the unofficial policy of the networks to stop showing the horror of that day (people jumping to their deaths, the 2nd plane impact, the towers actually falling) since shortly after the attacks themselves.

Would we be getting all butt hurt about someone using a mushroom cloud under similar circumstances? Shouldn't we be offended in those cases for the people who died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Should the Japanese?

Again, I'm no bleeding heart lefty. Quite the opposite. But I prefer to save my anger for those that really deserver it. Not for some poor underpaid guy in a corporate art department who figured he'd use a (now) classic symbol of destroyed prosperity without taking into account the sensibilities of some folks halfway around the world for which the ad wasn't even intended.

I can understand if I had lost a loved one on 9/11, seeing that image might bring up some pain. But, were there not a bunch of people who seem to want to make a big deal out of this, I'd be very unlikely to see that ad at all. And, of all the things that would have brought me pain since losing a loved one in that assault on our nation, I think I'd count a foreign ad talking about "music surviving after the world is destroyed" pretty low on my list.
 
tiuk said:
From Engadget:
http://images.imp3.net/article/2006/11/30/050101.jpg[/
So I guess the "hope" thing is supposed to make it okay. It doesn't bug me, but I can see how some people would be offended. Not a good idea for a marketing campaign.

I know I've seen a picture of the WTC ruins that was very similar to that one. I googled it but didn't want to wade through the multitude of results.

Here's one shot I found though, of one of the prominent standing walls:
[img]http://www.travelogues.net/World_Trade_Center/images/wtc_08.jpg[/


[color=cyan]EDIT: tiuk, please do not hotlink images from other sites' servers. That amounts to bandwidth theft. Feel free to re-host the images yourself or use one of the many free available uploaders, like the one provided for us by [url=http://images.dr3vil.com/]Dr.Evil[/url]. Thanks. - Lethal[/color][/QUOTE]

I'm pretty sure that last image actually IS the one they used in the ad, look at the curved cutaway on the top left, and the crumpling on the bottom right.

I'm not offended, but it is in shockingly bad taste.
Click to expand...
 
I don't expect them to feel the same way as us Americans about it. They will feel it when they post their quarterly and yearly earnings.

I DO, however, expect that EVERY SINGLE American feel the same way about it. However... I know that will never happen in a thousand lifetimes. At least 30% of Americans should be deported... because I know there are at least that many of them that badmouth my country every chance they get.
 
050101.jpg


They could be saying that even after the 9/11 attacks that the hope that we can have is through music ... and what better way to listen to musci is through their own mp3 player. bottom line... if you lose ALL hope, music will bring you back up to your feet. So after all hope is lost after 9/11 music will bring us up. Thats the way I see their ad.
 
Hurin said:
I don't think we've done nearly enough about what happened on 9/11
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Expressing your views on the ad aside (poor taste/ignorance of the chinese), nuking Iraq/Afghanistan would be enough, don't you think.
 
Hurin said:
It's clearly the WTC. No doubt about it. Those images are seared on my brain.

Now. . . I'm about as right-wing regarding 9/11 as they come. I don't think we've done nearly enough about what happened on 9/11 and I can't believe that our country has already settled back into "Let's be nice and maybe they'll stop hating us" type of policies on both sides of the partisan divide.

Having said that. This ad does not offend me. Especially in context (with the chinese translated).

Now, if the meaning of the ad was: "Go terrorists! Good job on 9/11!". . . then I'd be outraged.

But the intent of the ad is to show a devastated world (in which music prevails!) and they happened to use an image from the WTC (which are ubiquitous). Uh. . . so what? Too soon? Well, I think it's too soon for us to start forgetting 9/11. And I've had a problem with the unofficial policy of the networks to stop showing the horror of that day (people jumping to their deaths, the 2nd plane impact, the towers actually falling) since shortly after the attacks themselves.

Would we be getting all butt hurt about someone using a mushroom cloud under similar circumstances? Shouldn't we be offended in those cases for the people who died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Should the Japanese?

Again, I'm no bleeding heart lefty. Quite the opposite. But I prefer to save my anger for those that really deserver it. Not for some poor underpaid guy in a corporate art department who figured he'd use a (now) classic symbol of destroyed prosperity without taking into account the sensibilities of some folks halfway around the world for which the ad wasn't even intended.

I can understand if I had lost a loved one on 9/11, seeing that image might bring up some pain. But, were there not a bunch of people who seem to want to make a big deal out of this, I'd be very unlikely to see that ad at all. And, of all the things that would have brought me pain since losing a loved one in that assault on our nation, I think I'd count a foreign ad talking about "music surviving after the world is destroyed" pretty low on my list.
Click to expand...

I too do not find it at all offensive. You all are taking the ad too far out of context. Even if you don't understand their marketing scheme (uhh, different country people, different countries view ads in different ways, it's not ALL about America) you should be more open to the true meaning of the ad, not the picture. I've seen the destroyed WTC buildings used in commercials to sell silver found at ground zero, did anyone find those offensive? Probably not. I think because this is a foreign country things are taken out of context. Plus the translated version of the ad NO WHERE mentions the WTC, another clue that makes me believe this is just a picture they decided to use, not one used to offend.

I doubt most of the Chinese/Taiwanese people even know/care about the WTC, just as most American's probably don't know about many disasters that go on in foreign nations. You people are thinking too egocentrically IMO, and need to view this from THEIR perspective, just a picture used for an ad to get people to buy products.

I like BenQ products and will continue to buy them in the future, this ad is only taken distastefully because people look too closely into it.
 
edgy? no. risque? yes. smart? no. Not a good idea. How did a major corporation's marketing department pass this ad?
 
alkaline said:
edgy? no. risque? yes. smart? no. Not a good idea. How did a major corporation's marketing department pass this ad?
Click to expand...

Believe me its not deliberate. Most probably ignorance and copy paste from internet. I have to say first time i saw i didn't notice the burning towers. but then it not only shows towers, ufos and some alien planet as well. just bad taste..
 
nobi125 said:
It doesn't matter what they have to say, using the image of the destroyed WTC to sell an MP3 player is just plain stupid. Their intent has nothing to do with that fact that the ad is really insensitive due to the imagery alone.

Them not being American isn't an excuse, it's not like American companies use pictures of buildings destroyed by Tsunamis to sell MP3 players.
Click to expand...
Oh, so it's angering you that they used it to advertise music and that they are not Americans? If some american company uses an image to advertise a lawfirm in which they try to get people to sue each other just so they can get a big chunck of change would you be offended? Well I have seen more than enough of those sick loads of crap on TV.

American companies are usually too stupid to make a good advertisment in the first place. They never would think that making something look good by uplifting someone's spirit and making them feel like there are things worth believing in would actually sell something.
 
Aeauvian12 said:
I too do not find it at all offensive. You all are taking the ad too far out of context. Even if you don't understand their marketing scheme (uhh, different country people, different countries view ads in different ways, it's not ALL about America) you should be more open to the true meaning of the ad, not the picture. I've seen the destroyed WTC buildings used in commercials to sell silver found at ground zero, did anyone find those offensive? Probably not. I think because this is a foreign country things are taken out of context. Plus the translated version of the ad NO WHERE mentions the WTC, another clue that makes me believe this is just a picture they decided to use, not one used to offend.

I doubt most of the Chinese/Taiwanese people even know/care about the WTC, just as most American's probably don't know about many disasters that go on in foreign nations. You people are thinking too egocentrically IMO, and need to view this from THEIR perspective, just a picture used for an ad to get people to buy products.

I like BenQ products and will continue to buy them in the future, this ad is only taken distastefully because people look too closely into it.
Click to expand...
Exactly what you said.
 
toy4x4 said:
http://www.benq.us/support/contact/index.cfm?region=78&query=5
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Thank you for that link. Just sent them an email. Suggest you all do the same.

Hello,

I am writing to express my outrage over this BenQ advertisement:

http://www.benq.com.cn/musiq/

It is incredibly insensitive and in bad taste to use an image of the destroyed World Trade Center to sell MP3 players.

I have been contemplating the purchase of a new LCD monitor. Needless to say, I have just crossed BenQ off my list and will never purchase any of your products.
Click to expand...
 
The US government trying to use the WTC as an excuse for invading Iraq is a helluva lot more "offensive" than a harmless advert.
 
Is the [H] turning into a typical news media site? This really seems like a reach to me, Steve...kind of a chicken-little scenario. The most offensive thing about that site is the kid's clothing. I'm just as patriotic as the next guy, but give me a break...
 
I, too, find the ad offensive but do understand the meaning they were trying to convey. I do believe it to be in poor taste and lacks respect for those who died on that terrible day.

Am I upset about them using the image? More dissapointed that they didn't take the time to properly research the image and find out what type of meaning it may have to others.

Will I stop purchasing BenQ products? Never have had the desire to purchase anything they have ever offered so I don't worry about it.
 
Here is my view, you guys are a bunch of whiners.

Here is another forum for you guys to invade and take over what is offensive.

Have fun.
 
I find the Che Gueverra shirt (I don't care if I mispell the murdering Commie's name) I just saw on one of my fellow American's back infinitely more offensive than this ad which has obvioulsy --and perhaps wilfully-- been misunderstood/misinterpreted.

The guy in Taiwan or China wasn't creating this ad for American consumption and probably intended no distinct reference to 9/11. That clown in his Che shirt knows better. . . or should.
 
That picture is of the WTC ground zero this is the actual buidling

I understand how this image can shock. I didn't lose anyone on 9-11 thankfully, but I did live through that day. I worked on 12th and E Street NW DC, just 4 blocks from the White House. I don't know if I'm just numb from the constant 9-11 that has been tossed in my face, or if I'm just an insensitive prick, but this ad doesn't make me vomit, or want to boycott BENQ. I don't know if BENQ know how this image affects people in the United States. I suspect there have been many ads in that past that referenced some awful event, but 9-11, and it's imagery is really something emblazened in American's minds. I'm not defending BENQ, or the Chinese, or the Taiwanese, or Communists, or Corporate Greed (which seems to go against Communism), but I am trying to convey that there is a whole planet out there that isn't American, doesn't think American, and didn't live through 9-11. To the world, 9-11 was a TV event. If you want to boycott BenQ, that's fair. That's choice. Just try to remember that every culture, no matter how big, or how small, has had some awful event happen in which imagery was taken and used for political propaganda, or economical gain.

In short, don't give in to such knee jerk reactions which may arise from simple cultural misunderstandings. Again, not defending BenQ, just offerering some insight that the world is not as US centric as we expect.
 
Put it this way: I doubt Americans would be offended if there was a picture of a foreign country's disaster in the ad. They probably would have no idea what disaster it was either. So, from that perspective, even being an American, I don't see the big deal. If it was an advertisement here, it would be of poor taste. Considering their lack of intent, I don't see why I need to hate BenQ now just because they used an unknown Google pic. I could just as easily say you were insensitive by spreading the picture on this forum, no?
 
Can people express the same feelings toward the 650,000+ Iraqi civillians who have been butchered by George W. over the past five years?
 
This isnt even an american ad. Who cares if whiney americans are offended. I'm sure the entire world is offended by a lot of movies that come out of hollywood, and the public perception that americans are some how superior to the rest of world. All this politically correct bullshit is destroying the fabric of this so called "fee" society.
 
keefusm said:
I think its mighty low. ( I am to easy going to let something like this bother me) I just wonder how they would feel if an American company did something similar to this but with Nagasaki or Hiroshima in the background. (You know what I am getting at).
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BenQ probably won't care because the Nagasaki & Hiroshima events happened in Japan, not in Taiwan.
 
Xerran said:
Can people express the same feelings toward the 650,000+ Iraqi civillians who have been butchered by George W. over the past five years?
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This sort of post is exactly why this thread is a bad idea. Politics isn't allowed here, right? Yet, it's (sadly) nearly impossible to seperate political views from one's feelings about 9/11 and our response to it. . . all of which are impossible to avoid while discussing this ad.

This thread is a bad idea. And ridiculous posts like the one above are the proof. And yes, I think that post is ridiculous because anyone who has done a bit of digging beyond his insular web echo chamber will quickly find that the 650,000+ figure has been roundly discredited. Not to mention that those civilians that have died have nearly all been killed by terrorists bombs or attacks intended to incite a civil war. But, why does it not surprise me that people simplisticly also blame the actions of our enemies on us (or our President) as well. That's a neat trick! Let's blame all the dead the Axis killed in WWII on us too while we're at it!

And, that's exactly the sort of things we're not supposed to discuss here. . . but will be discussed as long as it's a slow news day and somehow this topic is worthy of being put on [H]'s front page and discussed here.

Edit: I see someone else got moderated for "thread crapping". . . I hope this isn't seen as "crapping". . . it's just my opinion about how this thread violates the terms of service of this forum and is just asking for trouble.
 
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