Extremely Offensive BenQ Ad

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Hurin said:
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.


Sorry man. Now I feel like a total douche for even responding. :(
 
hoodlikegaza said:
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.
Thankfully, I didn't loose anybody on 9/11, but as an American, I am still some-what offended. The world trade centers collapsed because of terrorists that killed themselves, just to kill us. Now I'm sure, if terrorists were to kill your family, then a company used the ruins of that attack in an ad, you would be offended.

And I KNOW, I've seen this piece of ruble in a WTC picture:
-wtcrI2c.jpg


Now I'm not sure that I'll be buying one of BenQ's products.
 
No, that pic is in exceptionall bad taste. Anyone who has seen the pics of the remains of the WTC knows that pic is INTENDED to remind you of it. Honestly, I hate political correctness, but this ad is in even worse taste than Sony's PSP black and white ad.

It really does upset me a bit, and it's made worse by being put out only to a foreign market. All it does is scream out that the management of BenQ approves of the destruction of the WTC towers and thinks it's cool and funny to make an ad with it.

EDIT - I have a whole big file of high-res pics of the WTC after it collapsed. I'm convinced that pic is a heavily edited actual pic of the WTC.
 
orkan said:
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.

freedom of speech. americans have every right to say whatever they want about their country, good or bad.
 
Advil said:
All it does is scream out that the management of BenQ approves of the destruction of the WTC towers.
WOW! Now that is a stretch!

Edit: Clearly, BenQ management also approved of the little alien spacecraft destroying it too! :rolleyes:
 
I think someone in marketing didn't do their research and it shows, while I agree it's in bad taste I think it's more like a marketing blunder on a grand scale. It's like words in English that mean something else in a different language and if the marketing group doesn't do some research it has the potential of offending someone in a different country. I don't think there was any evil intention in this ad at least I hope not.
 
Advil said:
EDIT - I have a whole big file of high-res pics of the WTC after it collapsed. I'm convinced that pic is a heavily edited actual pic of the WTC.

Why do you have a whole "big file" of high-res pics of the WTC after it collapsed? Isn't it enough that they actually DID collapse?

We've already established it is an actual pic of the WTC after it collapsed.
 
Pepster64 said:
I think someone in marketing didn't do their research and it shows, while I agree it's in bad taste I think it's more like a marketing blunder on a grand scale. It's like words in English that mean something else in a different language and if the marketing group doesn't do some research it has the potential of offending someone in a different country. I don't think there was any evil intention in this ad at least I hope not.

LOL! you mean likeThese?
 
Wow, I missed this earlier.

+1 Vote for not buying their stuff. Profiting off of the murder of innocents is not something I want to support.
 
It's apparent, though, that this ad was made in another country, designed for another audience.. Just because the WTC tragedy was horrid to us, and we would be loath to ever use it in such a manner, we can't expect every other country to feel the same exact way about it as we do.

It just simply isn't as sensitive a topic in other countries.. And I am sure we offend other countries by things or ads we might say or make. Why? Because our culture is different, we see things differently.

I swear, more and more I think USA is starting to stand for Unbelievably Sensitive Asshats. I am not trying to be a dick here, I am just trying to point out that we can't make every single person in every single country in the world be a total and complete emulation of our views, beliefs and mores. We need to learn to pick and choose our battles.. Haven't we learned that from Bush's screwups?

Yes, I think that it is in poor taste. But then again it's not an ad aimed at me. There are much, much, much more important things in this world to get angry over, and do things about.
 
UrielDagda said:
It's apparent, though, that this ad was made in another country, designed for another audience.. Just because the WTC tragedy was horrid to us, and we would be loath to ever use it in such a manner, we can't expect every other country to feel the same exact way about it as we do.

It just simply isn't as sensitive a topic in other countries.. And I am sure we offend other countries by things or ads we might say or make. Why? Because our culture is different, we see things differently.

I swear, more and more I think USA is starting to stand for Unbelievably Sensitive Asshats. I am not trying to be a dick here, I am just trying to point out that we can't make every single person in every single country in the world be a total and complete emulation of our views, beliefs and mores. We need to learn to pick and choose our battles.. Haven't we learned that from Bush's screwups?

Yes, I think that it is in poor taste. But then again it's not an ad aimed at me. There are much, much, much more important things in this world to get angry over, and do things about.


Exactly, the American media pumps out tons of insensitive content that would insult other cultures, but when it happens to them, they cry foul. What hypocrites.
 
Oldie said:
Wow, I missed this earlier.

+1 Vote for not buying their stuff. Profiting off of the murder of innocents is not something I want to support.

Yeah agreed. Also, while people have pointed out that Americans have done bad marketing, this doesn't solve anything.

Second, since I would bet that Benq has a huge market in the USA, advertising this is a very stupid idea. Why don't they advertise Unit 731 in China? Benq, get a brain.

Third, yeah this defintely will keep Benq off my Xmas list immediately, and I plan to drop 1000 on a 20+ monitor. Let's hope Acer doesn't release this, or my '26 inch plan done :(.

Also, are they trying to appeal to a depressed market during Christmas? I wonder if anyone will get fired as a result of this ad. Also - how long will it stay online for hah!
 
Chrono said:
Yeah agreed. Also, while people have pointed out that Americans have done bad marketing, this doesn't solve anything.

Second, since I would bet that Benq has a huge market in the USA, advertising this is a very stupid idea. Why don't they advertise Unit 731 in China? Benq, get a brain.

Third, yeah this defintely will keep Benq off my Xmas list immediately, and I plan to drop 1000 on a 20+ monitor. Let's hope Acer doesn't release this, or my '26 inch plan done :(.

Also, are they trying to appeal to a depressed market during Christmas? I wonder if anyone will get fired as a result of this ad. Also - how long will it stay online for hah!

Have you read any of the previous posts?
Benq did not intend to market this ad to Americans. From what it looks like, they are marketing a mp3 player to a younger generation.
It's very easy to jump to conclusions, even easier when it makes you seem patriotic. For those of you who are reasonable, you could just shoot an email to Benq letting them know the picture is of the World Trade Center, and Americans might see it. Instead, you post here with some of the most ignorance I've ever seen. Things like not supporting communism or profit off of the murder's of innocents. Are you serious?! Funny thing is, many of the people who posted didn't do any of their own research into this, and instead just posted.
 
Actually it looks like what Nagasaki or Hiroshima looked like after the Americans dropped their Atomic Bombs on the Japanese killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. By the way I think you might of opened up a can of worms with this thread. You might not like to read this but some Japanese are still alive and suffering from that bombing and have a long memory. I think you should let sleeping dogs lie.The fight is between Al queda and the Americans not the Japanese.
 
Skunt said:
Exactly, the American media pumps out tons of insensitive content that would insult other cultures, but when it happens to them, they cry foul. What hypocrites.

A bit shocking that a noobie has more sense than most in this thread. Frankly, I'm pretty embarrassed by what many active [H]'ers are posting here. If anything, I am "shocked" by the shock, if you will.
 
Well Steve, they are not glorifying the terrorists like the American liberal media or liberal Democrats do daily. The ad doesn't strike me as being offensive, maybe poor taste, but not offensive.
 
I believe the comparison of Hiroshima/Nagasaki to the twin towers sums of the patriotic compassion driving these intelligent individuals to lead their anti-advertisement revolt!

Yeah, 3000 people died on 9/11 vs roughly 360000, plus another 140000 from radiation related illnesses within the next five years... totally similar.

For one, America as a country chose to bomb those civilians, not to mention the subsequent firebombing of soft targets leading up to the nukes which killed many more civilians than the nukes.

That's a great comparison for a rogue cell attacking a few buildings here(70-90000 buildings destroyed there) arguably the buildings attacked were logical targets. Were we attacking Japanese buildings of the same importance they would've been gone immediately.

You people act like this CORPORATION is a neighbor of yours or something, and it's said something offensive. It's an advertisement, selected to attract a demographic to a product. There is no goodwill campaign to win the hearts and minds from the corporation only a product to distribute. They don't care what you think, unless it starts hurting their sales at which point you'll all get your little politically correct garbage that rubs your tummy spoonfed to you so you can happily purchase their crap again.

You are not the targeted demographic by any means, which is obvious so why are you even paying attention?

Also, nuking Iraq and Afghanistan while killing millions of innocent people is fun, likely wouldn't solve much as the attackers which succesfully hit us were all from Saudi Arabia.

That you people are offended by some MP3 player advertisement and not using the event itself as a propulsion to destroy civil liberties at a record pace, advocate torture, and wage a massive war arguably for profit(see: Iraq for sale or don't bother arguing as you are blind to the facts) is astounding to me.

Why don't you focus on something that matters, even a little bit?
 
UrielDagda said:
It's apparent, though, that this ad was made in another country, designed for another audience.. Just because the WTC tragedy was horrid to us, and we would be loath to ever use it in such a manner, we can't expect every other country to feel the same exact way about it as we do.

Your right about that, however we do have the right to protest that fact, we protest it with the phone, with email, and the thing that hurts companies most, our wallets.

It just simply isn't as sensitive a topic in other countries.. And I am sure we offend other countries by things or ads we might say or make. Why? Because our culture is different, we see things differently.

Does that mean that an international company like Benq that sells it's products here in the US shouldn't be open to criticisim simply because "our culture is different" than theirs, that same logic is what made it possible for the Nazi's to murder 6 million Jews, start a war that killed over 10 million people, and allowed Stalin to murder over 20 million Russians.

I swear, more and more I think USA is starting to stand for Unbelievably Sensitive Asshats.

I am not trying to be a dick here

You failed miserably.

I am just trying to point out that we can't make every single person in every single country in the world be a total and complete emulation of our views, beliefs and mores. We need to learn to pick and choose our battles.

I don't think anybody is suggesting that they do. However, I doubt very much that China would appreciate say France using the Japanese invasion of China where untold tens of thousands of Chinese died (probably in the millions) to sell French wine either.

Haven't we learned that from Bush's screwups?

Learn from your own mistakes first before you go blaming somebody else for your own failures.

Yes, I think that it is in poor taste. But then again it's not an ad aimed at me.

Lets kick that up a notch and replace ad with gun, or law. Your reasoning here suggests that because something isn't directed at you, that you cannot be harmed or affected by it. Again that same reasoning can be used to condone all sorts of bad behavior because "it doesn't affect me, why should I care", ask most white people in the south during the time of segregation if they thought that the laws against blacks were ok they probably would have said yes "because it doesn't apply to them" that attitude just leads to apathy and is quite frankly just a cop out and an excuse for not standing up to say there is a difference between right and wrong.

There are much, much, much more important things in this world to get angry over, and do things about.

Your right here again too, but based on what you've previously stated, you don't care about the feelings of others, so why bother posting here in the first place. Defending this company simply because it is in a different country and is subject to different laws and morals doesn't make what they did right.

Now as for the ad itself. while Benq may have the right, and even the will to use 9/11 imagery to sell it's products, it also should realize that there will be consequences for doing so, the biggest consequence being that Americans for the most part may not complain to the company directly, they will however take one look at the Benq name from this point on and just move onto another brand. We may not be able to, nor for that matter pass laws and rules against such a company, we are however perfectly within our rights to complain to Benq as well as to just buy product from another company.

Suggestion to Benq, don't bite the hand that feeds you, you'll regret it.
 
Valcrist77 said:
Have you read any of the previous posts?
Benq did not intend to market this ad to Americans. From what it looks like, they are marketing a mp3 player to a younger generation.

It's very easy to jump to conclusions, even easier when it makes you seem patriotic. For those of you who are reasonable, you could just shoot an email to Benq letting them know the picture is of the World Trade Center, and Americans might see it. Instead, you post here with some of the most ignorance I've ever seen. Things like not supporting communism or profit off of the murder's of innocents. Are you serious?! Funny thing is, many of the people who posted didn't do any of their own research into this, and instead just posted.

Thank you for being a voice of reason in an unbelievable thread. When you see "patriots" use words like "communism", you can pretty easily tell what side of the political spectrum they're on.

It's never been the correct one either.
 
I'd like to see some quotes of these libtards and democrats supposedly advocating/propping up terrorists if you could please provide those.

I imagine the prospect to be very entertaining. Surprised I haven't heard about it yet Bad Dog.
 
while it might be in bad taste... freedom of speech it one of the utmost importance, be legal in another country or not.. where I live, in the (u)SA.. it is part of the Bill of Rights the SUPREME law of the land.
 
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?

... funny... I don't think that George W. has actually killed anyone.

Secondly... It will take a lot more towel-head blood to pay for the thousands that died on 9/11.

You don't have a CLUE what terrorism is about do you? If we'd have not retaliated as hard as we could... we'd have been viewed as weak and attacked over and over again.

We havnt been attacked since... and probably will not be attacked again any time soon. Fear the USA. Attack us... and we will come for you.
 
orkan said:
... funny... I don't think that George W. has actually killed anyone.

Secondly... It will take a lot more towel-head blood to pay for the thousands that died on 9/11.

You don't have a CLUE what terrorism is about do you? If we'd have not retaliated as hard as we could... we'd have been viewed as weak and attacked over and over again.

We havnt been attacked since... and probably will not be attacked again any time soon. Fear the USA. Attack us... and we will come for you.

Towel-head blood? dude, chill out.
 
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