On the subject of things that seemed clever at the time

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I closed last week's blog with a little joke about peanut butter sandwiches and dead children. Writing those words now, I'm trying to remember why I thought it was a good idea. I've never been terribly good at filtering myself when I think something's funny, though it seemed considerably less amusing when I received an e-mail from a longtime reader whose daughter has anaphylaxis. He didn't give me a hard time about it at all, but I still felt like an utter asshole.

So I can't help but feel sorry for Richard Curtis, who undoubtedly wrote 10:10's bloodbath with the best of intentions: "We wanted to bring [climate change] back into the headlines while making people laugh." Unfortunately, people didn't laugh and the headlines were "Eco-Fascist Snuff Movie A Disaster." Corporate sponsors pulled their support, 10:10 pulled the video from their website and, perhaps worst of all, the ad Curtis wrote to help the environment ended up becoming political propaganda for climate change deniers.

And you thought The Boat That Rocked was his biggest flop.

This campaign's a few years old now, but I would be remiss not to include it in any discussion of WTF advertising:

-Graham

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