See here for the EU's latest propaganda drive - an impressive website targetted at teenagers, offering them a trip to Sweden and a Moby concert as it promotes "EU action against climate change".
The Commission's favourite new partner for this kind of thing - MTV - is once again involved. Presumably they don't come cheap. The last round of expensive MTV ads didn't work - you know, the ones trying to persuade "young people" to vote in the European Parliament elections - so why are they persisting?
There are 3 laughable things about this campaign.
ReplyDelete1) Lack of relevance. In a world where content is accessible on demand from the click of a button, why would MTV actually have any influence any more. Certainly they have access to musicians that teenagers might want to hear from but there are so many artists these days that their influence is fragmented. We aren't exactly in the 90's anymore.
2) The use of social networking is frequently overrated by marketers. The fact is that people engage in social networking because of human interest and the communication it allows. Asking people what their views are on legislation they have never heard of before or what their favourite stains are (see Proctor & Gamble's failed attempt) does not count as communication and certainly isn't of interest to anyone.
Even if the it did spark some semblance of interest in the average teenager they would catch on fast to the fact that the EU isn't really interested in their political opinion (maintaining a youth wing offers the views and opinions that the commission wants to hear does not count). National governments don't listen enough as it is. What chance is there of a federal style government responding.
3) Who the hell is moby? Enough said!