Sure. I don't find it all that brilliant from a marketing perspective anyways. I'm in marketing, it's not easy. Look at car commercials - same old thing over and over.
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appropriate add for babolat in light of sandy hook
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Sure. I don't find it all that brilliant from a marketing perspective anyways. I'm in marketing, it's not easy. Look at car commercials - same old thing over and over.
Bartelby
Bionic Poster
Blade as a word has a lot of cultural connotations (work tools and beautification come to mind), but if they associated it directly with swords or other explicit means of violence then they would be condoning violence.
This thread and it's premise is so over the top.
Really? We are giving the assailant that much power? We can't even use any reference to weapons in marketing? They are not even showing a gun here. All weapons? Forever? Even if we use the word or meaning "weapon" loosely and cleverly? (weapon of love, weapon of seduction, weapon of destiny). This is still our country and our language and it can be used for good or bad. It's our choice and it up to us to use it correctly.
Too much power, time, and attention are right now being given to this mass murder and he has officially hijacked a completely amazing effort by a marketing team to energize a public about (what some call) a dying American sport. smh
Really? We are giving the assailant that much power? We can't even use any reference to weapons in marketing? They are not even showing a gun here. All weapons? Forever? Even if we use the word or meaning "weapon" loosely and cleverly? (weapon of love, weapon of seduction, weapon of destiny). This is still our country and our language and it can be used for good or bad. It's our choice and it up to us to use it correctly.
Too much power, time, and attention are right now being given to this mass murder and he has officially hijacked a completely amazing effort by a marketing team to energize a public about (what some call) a dying American sport. smh
Alohajrtennis
Semi-Pro
I actually thought the add campaign was kind of lame....guns or no guns...
I can't really say I have a strong feeling either way. It's a nice enough ad. But I'm not really sure if any specific ad will get anyone to change their minds or do this or that. It's all brand exposure. Gotta do something to keep your name out there or else you become irrelevant.
I do like the second ad posted, the "spin attacks". Nice play on words.
Pro_Tour_630
Legend
I think many here are like you, they live in la la land, you think these companies give a damn about a dying american sport,
the timing is being questioned
Bartelby
Bionic Poster
Its you who have invented an exaggerated version of this argument in order to criticise it - a well known but illegitimate argumentative strategy.
Pro_Tour_630
Legend
you see things very clearly, wisely and objectively.
If I may add, it was not only an event, it was a historical event of grand proportions,
Pro_Tour_630
Legend
these ads are not helping, why ad salt to a wound.
surely there are tons of offenders but we are on a tennis message board and tennis is our passion, lets start with our house, before we clean others
Pro_Tour_630
Legend
more like bad taste
I am no more exaggerating the argument than you are exaggerating the social issues behind a tennis poster.
The weapons in the poster are being held by professional athletes, adults. It is a play on the fact that their regular Babalot rackets can be used as "weapons" on the tennis court against an opponent. In a game of tennis. That's it.
Timing? How did they know that a picture of a celebrity athlete holding random weapons (NOT a gun) would make you think of Sandy Hook? Any weapon makes you think that? Any?
I do not see it, ok? I see word association and I know that a "weapon", in and of itself, is not always a bad thing.
Pro_Tour_630
Legend
I start cleaning my own house first before I look at the neighbors, beliefs are always tested. Tennis is our sport we should try to keep high standards.
Commendable. I wish more people would do this. Unfortunately, I'm not optimistic that much will change in regards to guns or our culture of violence. Too much money invested in it and too much money being made off of it.
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Pro_Tour_630
Legend
Bushmaster is selling the company after what happened in Newtown, a step in the right direction.
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Another one that virtually no one knows about and was worse (by numbers anyway). Both obviously horrendous. Historical grand proportions only lasts so long apparently.
http://www.voicenews.com/articles/2012/12/14/news/doc50cb9a4c85017667515931.txt
But neither have anything to do with tennis. If ya make that connection, you'd have to pull most movies off the big screen too, and TV show, and toys, games, etc. A deranged mind with access to these kind of weapons was the problem, not tennis ads.
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Not any weapon, then. That is ThE weapon. If someone in the ad was holding a bushmaster, we would then have an actual issue.
Bartelby
Bionic Poster
I'm not really the one prosecuting the argument, but the whole racquet as weapon thing is better left understated rather than adorned with cartoonish violence.
warrior, blade - human violence
storm, thunder, steam - natural violence
radical, rebel, extreme - youthful violence
drive, speed - car violence
juice - drug violence
Violence is already there in spades. Even chess is a form of violence, but associating tennis more with chess than bombs might improve the intelligence level of junior tennis.
warrior, blade - human violence
storm, thunder, steam - natural violence
radical, rebel, extreme - youthful violence
drive, speed - car violence
juice - drug violence
Violence is already there in spades. Even chess is a form of violence, but associating tennis more with chess than bombs might improve the intelligence level of junior tennis.
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Pro_Tour_630
Legend
flame thrower is worse than a bushmaster,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5D-0_SdTLg here in blackops, kids using flame throwers attached to Bushmaster. My 10 year old son told me wanted a flame thrower when he grows up after seeing Nadal with one
:shock:
TennisNinja
Hall of Fame
Oh my god I'm so offended this is absolutely outrageous I can't believe Babolat did this so shocking.
Pro_Tour_630
Legend
hey John Lennon was not offended by his cover album
to make a point about vietnam http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHgoklU2i9g
what is the usual fuss LOL
Pro_Tour_630
Legend
1927, oh he used a bomb/dynamite to blow up the school
sort of like the bomb Tsonga is carrying and Roddick is holding, thanks for clearing this up, :roll:again we are talking about tennis, our house, can we keep the weapons issue UNDERSTATED as bartelby mentioned, as opposed to OVERSTATED, we have enough problems with this stuff being exposed to our kids at every corner, do we really need to have them exposed to this with tennis as well, really
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Number1Coach
Banned
e
dont teach the "Slice"backhand that has to do with cutting someones backside of their hand , dont teach the "KICK" serve that could be related to kicking someone, Dont teach the "Backhand" because our kids may think that really means backhanding someone , Overhead "Smash" well it speaks for itself , teaching to serve into the body is a violent action , your swinging your racket as hard as you can and hoping the ball ends up in the body of the returner SUCH a violent move .
My conclusion we must stop teaching tennis !!!!!
dont teach the "Slice"backhand that has to do with cutting someones backside of their hand , dont teach the "KICK" serve that could be related to kicking someone, Dont teach the "Backhand" because our kids may think that really means backhanding someone , Overhead "Smash" well it speaks for itself , teaching to serve into the body is a violent action , your swinging your racket as hard as you can and hoping the ball ends up in the body of the returner SUCH a violent move .
My conclusion we must stop teaching tennis !!!!!
Bartelby
Bionic Poster
Well, not quite as big of a historical event of grand proportions as the Casey Anthony trial.
The more the media covers events like these - glorifying them in their twisted way - the more crazy/twisted/hurt people will decide that this is a way to do and be something important.
The case of Clear Lake High School outside Houston is educational. One kid committed suicide and a huge deal was made of it all over the local news with constant coverage, special reports, etc. That led to another and another - each covered wall-to-wall by the media. They finally figured out that the media coverage was driving the suicides. After the final one they followed an almost-blackout on reporting on the suicides and the suicides stopped -- no more dead kids.
1927, oh he used a bomb/dynamite to blow up the school
That was in reference to your grand historical event. It is only that until it is replaced with something else in this fast paced society. Can't believe I actually like a post by N1C! Now that's historical (for this moment anyway). They are finally giving tennis some balls and you want to find fault with it by linking it to a totally unrelated tragedy. Bigger fish to fry than this.
With the seemingly power of these ads maybe the lowly HS tennis player can finally catch up with the QB on the social ladder!
Bartelby
Bionic Poster
The suppression of suicide does prevent immediate copycat behaviour but it doesn't stop suicides and effectively eliminates the topic from public discussion.
A cat trapped up a tree is news, but a body floating in the river is not?
A cat trapped up a tree is news, but a body floating in the river is not?
Pro_Tour_630
Legend
We try to keep our sport clean, there are some references to violent terms in our sport ( as opposed to Love as a score in our sport
) but nothing violent happens on the court between players, nothing like mike Tyson bitting someones ear off for example, or fighting in Hockey. But then again our sport was so popular, it was banned for more than 500 years during the dark ages in Europe by the church because they would play and gamble all day long on tennis rather than pray. Just a quick question, how much bible teaching is involved with DB compared to tennis teaching? is it the same? So now were are equating a mother suffocating her 5 year old to sleep then poring chloroform on her and getting away with it with the help of her parents, to 20 6 year olds getting blown to smithereens with a bushmaster while at school. Surprised you did not say the Oj trial, which took years to finish.
Yeah I want my kids to be just like OJ and Vicks,,,,,,,,,,,,,, on the social ladder
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There is a lot of difference between a media circus and a rational publicization of a problem.
coaching32yrs
Semi-Pro
The Babolat ad is stupid and insulting but it has no afffect on violence in our society. Noted journalist Fareed Zakaria studied 3 issues connected with recent mass killings: violence in media and video games, lack of available mental health treatment, and lack of gun control and proliferation of guns. He found the USA no different than other industrialized countries in media violence and mental health treatment. In fact he found that mental health treatment is better than average in the US. The difference between the US and other countries are the number of guns and liberal gun control laws. The US gun homicide rate is 7 times that of Canada, 10 times that of Israel and 92 times that of England, which has very strict gun control laws. The country that has the highest rate of play of violent video games, by far, is Japan. The US gun homicide rate is 180 times that of Japan.
Oh yeah, the OJ trial, also.
A "historical event of grand proportions" would be World War II.
In the Casey Anthony case, one person was killed.
In the OJ case, two people were killed.
In the Sandy Hook shooting case approx. 20 people were killed.
In Norway the muderer killed about 85 children.
In an airplane crash, maybe 200 people are killed.
In an earthquake, 10,000 to 100,000 people may be killed.
In the continuing genocide in Congo, 6,000,000 people have died (how much have you heard of that?)
In the 1918 Spanish Flu, 20,000,000 to 50,000,000 people died (1% to 3% of the world's population)
In World War II 60,000,000 people were killed (2.5% of the world's population).
In China and Tibet, Mao Tse-tung killed (mostly by intentional starvation) 40,000,000 to 70,000,000 people (and he is a hero to many leftists)
As the parent of a first-grader, let me say, there are bigger things to be worried about than a stupid ad. This political correctness movement of finding offense at any little thing has got to stop before no one can say anything.
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Pro_Tour_630
Legend
see, you do not know what the implication are going to be down the road,
, WWI started with an assassination of one duke, the US did not react to WWII when Hitler was killing millions until Peal Harbor, several years later. So when the US Government starts collecting your guns due to the laws passed you will see an event of grand proportions and you will know what event broke the camels back.Number1Coach
Banned
We try to keep our sport clean, there are some references to violent terms in our sport ( as opposed to Love as a score in our sport
Just covered 1 Corith 7 on Friday night , it dealing with relationships , Marriage the best writings on this subject ever , You ever wonder where the term "you may now kiss your bride came from" most likely 1 Corinth 7 verse 1 ,just a side note
I deal with him about the Tora and New Testament teaching as well as the prophets on a daily basis .
I must admit tears flowed out my eyes over Sandy Hook, but we must understand these ads don't 'do much' compared to the brainwashing of movies, video games ad the public schools who push in their teaching that people are just part of the survial of the fittest system and life really doesnt matter ,,,,,this ad will go away and a new one will pop up but our children are brainwashed in schools and movie theaters and tv daily !
Heres a thought schools don't want the Bible there to encourage student yet Prisons encourage prisoners to read the bible to change their lives from bad to good , interesting how the state and govenrments keeps the doors revolving and we are all to ignorant to see it .
Pro_Tour_630
Legend
the numbnuts
on this forum would not know that this ad is also insulting as well which was taken down and an apology from the paper was given, the gun show was canceled.
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Pro_Tour_630
Legend
well said,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Number1Coach
Banned
I am not running for any political office therefore I say what I like and I never use the term African-American , I find that offensive to call someone something they are not ,how many Blacks have you met here in the USA that are truly duel citizens from Africa and nothing worse then being corrected by a Jamaican for trying to be politically correct .
Number1Coach
Banned
the numbnuts
This ad just shows how stupid people are , this is a no brainer and whoever put this together should be fire for incompetence
Pro_Tour_630
Legend
you are politically correct
and so am I, we are politically correct , NLB is politically incorrect,Switzerland has a similar gun ownership ratio as the U.S., but also nowhere near the violence or homicide rate. Therefore, gun ownership does not cause violence. (By the rules of Logic, the theory is disproved)
I can't find good statistics on Mexico, but certainly extremely strict gun control measures have not prevented much of the country from becoming a war zone. Rural areas in the U.S., with far higher gun ownership ratios, have far lower gun violence than urban areas. (One of the reasons that less restrictions on gun ownership is correllated with less gun crimes - just as with the guns cause violence case, there isn't really a causation)
Culture causes violence. The United States does have a violent culture. Almost all killings in the U.S. are due to criminal activity, much of it by street gangs in turf wars or for revenge (see Chicago these days). The root cause of violent death (and poverty) in the U.S. is the destruction of the family unit and fatherless households.
And remember, despite the media coverage, the homicide rate has been cut in half since 1991.
Pro_Tour_630
Legend
well said, does the ad and similar ads add to the culture we have? Like I said my ten year old told me he wanted similar weapons like the babolat ad when he grows up. Why do I have to expose my kid to such ads, we are just trying to play tennis, does reference to weapons so intertwined and sensationalized in our culture that we do not care anymore.
the numbnuts
I don't think the ad was insulting. It said 8th annual gun show. I assume they had similar ads for 7 years and probably didn't have a complaint about it. I might fire the person on the newspaper who placed the ad on the same page as the article. That was definitely oblivious to the situation.
well said, does the ad and similar ads add to the culture we have? Like I said my ten year old told me he wanted similar weapons like the babolat ad when he grows up. Why do I have to expose my kid to such ads, we are just trying to play tennis, does reference to weapons so intertwined and sensationalized in our culture that we do not care anymore.
Add to the culture? Yes, to the extent that a flea adds to the weight of the earth. Kids have wanted to play with weapons since the stone age and the invention of fire. We are human, with our failings and our evil side as well as our heavenly side. Without weapons, we humans starve to death or are killed.
Tennis itself is a fight with a net between the combatants so that no one gets hurt. In order to take away all desire for weapons you must take away all desire to compete.
DoctorBackhand
Rookie
So a french tennis company is supposed to coincide their ads directly with the American culture?
That doesn't sound right.
I've never been to Europe myself, but even from what most of the Europeans on this board say, their culture is different. Babolat, being french, probably wasn't considering how you might view this ad as vindictive to our gun culture when they made it.
Also, there are millions of violent conflicts all around the world happening before and after sandy hook. Nowhere yet have I seen Egyptians, Syrians, or Libyans complaining, and while you may argue that tennis is not as popular over there, it would be difficult for you to argue that our gun problem is worse than theirs.
Pro_Tour_630
Legend
babolat is a global company, with majority of sales in US because of roddick, your argument reminds me of chevy NOVA marketed in mexico, No va means the care that does not go in spanish.
So a french tennis company is supposed to coincide their ads directly with the American culture?
That doesn't sound right.
I've never been to Europe myself, but even from what most of the Europeans on this board say, their culture is different. Babolat, being french, probably wasn't considering how you might view this ad as vindictive to our gun culture when they made it.
Also, there are millions of violent conflicts all around the world happening before and after sandy hook. Nowhere yet have I seen Egyptians, Syrians, or Libyans complaining, and while you may argue that tennis is not as popular over there, it would be difficult for you to argue that our gun problem is worse than theirs.
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Pro_Tour_630
Legend
might
enough said, it is all relative, a small flea/mosquito can cause disease and kill millions, your desire to compete has tougned up your skin to a point of numbness,
might
it is all relative, a small flea/mosquito can cause disease and kill millions, your desire to compete has tougned up your skin to a point of numbness,
Might - there are a lot of legal ramifications you have to go through to fire someone these days. Is it fair to fire an excellent employee because of one mistake? Sometimes, sometimes not.
Numbness - I wouldn't call it that, maybe fatalism, but I see your point. From a desire to compete - certainly not. From understanding the flawed human condition and knowing that suffering on a grand scale will always be with us - yes.
How numb are you to the millions in Africa suffering and dying from malaria because of the environmentalists' ban on DDT? How numb are you to the poverty and starvation and environmental degredation across the world created by the U.S. requirement of 10% ethanol in gasoline (and they are working on getting it to 15%)? (Even Al Gore now admits it is an environmental disaster.)
We all have a limit to the number of things we can emotionally feel strongly about. We would be overwhelmed if we felt all the suffering in the world. I choose different issues to spend my time, emotions, and energy on.
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Misterbill
Semi-Pro
So this is now the basis of comparison for our country?
Your post has pushed me farther along the spectrum to the the gun control side of the debate
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