The image of a skinhead urinating into a tea cup, advertising Eurostar to Belgians, is causing a bit of a stir (not in the tea cup).
It's part of a campaign which includes John Cleese and other quirky British things which the Belgians, apparently, like. Those crazy Belgians!
But one thing seems to have been forgotten in the coverage of this. The Belgians have a history of liking images of....er....males urinating. Yes, I am sorry if it sounds a bit course, but it's true. I've seen their famous statue with my own eyes (below).
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Fascinating psychology behind Eurostar's urinating skinhead
Written by Paul on Saturday, November 17, 2007
Labels: Advertising
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4 comments:
It seems to me that the existence of the Manneken Pis does not mean that would-be Belgian tourists are attracted by the contemplation of real, adult shirtless yobs urinating before them, especially as drunken violent xenophobic skinhead football hooligans are an actual as well as a PR problem for Britain. I doubt very much that there is any objective basis for the claim that the ads "work well" in promoting the sale of train tickets to London.
Thank you very much! Good point! Nice to hear from someone from the other Berkshire!
Thank you for noticing. I haven't been to your Berkshire; it seems more centrally significant than my recently adopted county (population 135,000, dominated still by some depressed cities which used to have major mill factories).
I see you're a Liberal Democrat. That also means something different on this side of the Atlantic. I'm not sure why, but our "first-past-the-post" system has been even more effective than Britain's at keeping third parties marginalized in our Congress. (We only have 1 member of each house who is not formally a Democrat or a Republican, one of them to the left of most Dems, and one rejected by the Dems as too hawkish.)
Thanks - yes whenever I have heard "liberal Democrat" mentioned in the American sense it is usually as an insult!
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