When Spin-doctors go bad! (or just get lazy)

I'm not a happy guy. {Look out SG fan(s) here comes a rant!} It has to do with the start of the Super 12, but has nothing to do with rugby. In fact it has more to do with cricket. Sky Television is advertising the start of the S12 with some admittedly clever hoardings. They sport pictures of obviously carefree and downright friendly people. And then there is a caption that exposes the truth. Inside these mild mannered persons is a seething burning hatred for supporters of other New Zealand S12 franchises. The juxtaposition is funny (DH - the fact that the people appear friendly but are actually full of venom is the juxtaposition... thingy...). But on the other hand, and some might say it is a "girly pinko leftist tree-hugging" hand, this is inciting the worst behaviour in we rugby fans. But why not, you may ask. We have been commenting on this very problem on the new and very swish RugbyHeads discussion board. Everyone is taking his or her own sweet time to get into the rugby groove! Why not speed things up a bit? This lack of interest certainly isn't good for Sky's advertisers. They pay good money, in rather large truckloads, for the maximum number of punters to see their helpful and informative advertisements. And if those punters are watching another channel, or worse still OUTSIDE! indulging in a marathon innings of back-yard cricket, then they (the advertiser) aren't getting their monies worth. This is the reason for the Sky advertising, to help us get revved up for the S12 season. To encourage us to be watching every second of their S12 coverage, from the very first second. If the message were in any way racist, no-body would agree to put the hoardings up. Of course they aren't, and you could say that they are only reflecting the real nature of the rugby fan. However, are they reminding us of the friendly rivalry that exists between S12 fans? Well actually, they aren't. Simply because the hoardings send the message the wrong way! Since you see the picture first, and then the text, your mind sees that the “truth” is really the 2nd message. Friendly is really hatred! Now if the picture showed Norm Maxwell crash tackling Carlos Spencer, and the quote from Spencer said, "OK... but it's your shout after the game!" it would be a different story. Then we would firstly see the grit, determination and shear physical "in your face" ness of the tackle. Following this we would read the contrasting comment, and realise that despite the unfriendliness during play, after the match the mood amongst the players (especially fellow All Blacks) changes to that of camaraderie. Or: hatred is really friendly! This is a positive message inspiring the same sense of anticipation and longing for the start of the S12, but without the thuggish thinking that is so often associated with the worst of rugby crowd behaviour. I don't get paid scwillions of dollars to write advertising, and I can work this out. Don't you think that Sky could? Don't you think that they should!

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Let us know what you think!

You have fans?!?! Ah but do you have your own website eh? Where you get to spin shit at the end of everyone else's articles? eh, do ya?!? As for these ads it might help if we could see them, I'll send Jules out with his digital camera to see what he can do...

Supposedly this article has been viewed times since we bothered to start counting*.
(Although it could have just been on the Reload button doing some serious ego padding!)