Wednesday, March 01, 2006

it's just wrong

i think i can make this gig a regular thing lol.

i was checking my mail the other day when i saw this online ad from englicom, the filipino-chinese organization in de la salle (like celadon in admu. its president stresses that its more proper to describe it as the filipino AND chinese organization and i say its adding crap icing to the dung cake). check it out:



its a photo contest project of the said org. ive been scrutinizing the branding, nature of activities, of this particular organization because even though im not a member (i dont want to join), i feel that i (actually we) are all part of it in the sense that we represent the filipino chinese community. lets take a minute of your time to digest this particular project of theirs.

its actually a project that aims to raise social awareness through a photography contest. well the idea sounded good but the way that they packaged it is simply just wrong.

peppering the advertisement with emotively charged words to describe a marginalized social sector is simply inappropriate, if not arrogant. take a particular look at the second sentence. apalling isnt it? whats even worse (or funnier) is that the mechanics of the contest are actually leading. heheh.

now, wouldnt it be nicer and would make more sense if they instead just made a sustainable long-term socio-civic activity than make this one? a quick fix for social responsibility of the filipino chinese community?

tsk tsk. it's just wrong.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey there, Glenn. Hmm, so this is where you do your blogging.:)

Anyway, well, why I agree that if you're after the long term, this is simply not the way to go about it. But...hmm...you know how Sherlock Holmes always used to criticize Watson's writing style by saying that instead of presenting the facts and the logic, Watson would sensationalize the stories so people would read them? But when Holmes finally did try to tell his own tales, he found that he had to admit that the story, while fact-based, must be told interestingly.

Yeah, I know that's all fictional, but there's a point there. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you must grab the interst of people before you get them to do anything. Maybe that was the idea behind the photo contest as against a long-term soci-civic activity.

However, having have said that, I do agree with you that the packaging of the activity is rather crass. The instructions seem insensitive to the people they're supposed to be promoting, and the focus of the ad's come-on on the reward money and not the idea of promoting social awareness makes it all look like well, to put it bluntly, like they're exploiting the poor to get money.

My take: a better idea could have been to still have the photo contest, have people vote for the best photo at a fee, then have all the proceeds of the voting go to some charity. Then they could donate the photos to our art gallery. They could still put up reward money, but that could have been less emphasized.

peppericious said...

Yello, whoever you are. This blog is getting too smart for me. I think we should go back to linking chuck norris websites. Hahahhaha. I'm just kidding. Love the direction this blog is going, makes me look smart by association.

Nikki, my friend Eugene thinks you're cute. He hasn't actually seen you, but he says he can tell what you look like by the way you use your adjectives. He says yours are intellectually sensual.

Anonymous said...

Hello all!

Forgive my inadvertent trespassing here. When I first commented, I didn't realize that this was a group blog.:)

Glenn told me that people were beginning to wonder who I am. I'm Glenn's blockmate and...well that's it.

To peppericious: Hmm...interesting. Makes me wonder how your friend pictures me in his mind. Actually, I read your comment a few days ago, and I think I'm still blushing. It left me so speechless I couldn't reply right away.

So there...:D

G said...

yihee. you HAVE to meet eugene. his physique and charms are legendary in blue and white county. lol.