This pretty outrageous. BenQ is using images of the rubble of the WTC in their advertising.
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It’s a little hard to tell if you didn’t see the attacks happen and have those images burned into your brain but it’s definitely the site of the WTC after the Sept 11th attacks.
Do a crop and flip of the second image:
Now resize it:
Then check it with the ad:
Some might wonder why this is a big deal. The attacks on 9/11 left an indelible mark on the psyche of most Americans. The associations with that day go beyond just having some big buildings fall. I believe that these images will be off limits in tasteful ads forever. And they probably should be.
Update and addendum: The message, even with the bad translation wasn’t offensive. It’s the use of the image itself. BenQ is a multi-national company and they need to be sensitive to people around the world. Many people would find this use of a national tragedy as a stock image out of line.
I personally don’t have a problem with dramatization of the events or recreation of the images but to use this picture - one that’s been seen by many people and an immediate reminder of the attacks is too much. If they had made an artist’s rendering I wouldn’t have thought twice about it.
18 comments ↓
I’m not sure what they are thinking! That certainly doesn’t make me want to go out and buy a music player!
Steve, you’re right and good photoshopping. I am now confused because of the tagline on that last picture in your post. “I believe music makes hope”, if that’s what they put on the ad, seems like they’re trying to inspire you, but they shot way off the mark. Point is, I am inclined to believe dumbassery over malice here.
This is false. The add you (or someone) created is not a BenQ ad, nor an ad created by any of their official media agents. You couldn’t even spell “belive” correctly, jeesh!
Sounds to me like someone has it in for BenQ for whatever reasons.
Move along folks, nothing to see here.
Author’s note: if I were going to fake an ad, I’d spell “believe” correctly. I believe I can do that.
this is totally fake..
Author’s note: it’s not fake. I had nothing to do with the original image. You can find it all over the net, including at Engadget.
Well looking at the bottom right hand corner it appears that this is from BenQ’s China division (www.benq.com.cn). Maybe they decided that Chinese wouldn’t be as offended or recognize it as easily… or maybe management there has poor taste.
how do you explain the glaring spelling error? where was this supposedly published??
i think this is fake. what company would think its a good idea to use the wtc in their ad, and mispell the word ‘believe’ ???????? unless musiq is run by a fifteen year old in his parent’s basement, i think that somebody at musiq would’ve at least noticed the spelling error.
http://www.benq.com.cn/musiQ/
Looks pretty real to me.
For those interested, go to http://www.benq.com.cn/musiq/ and see the ad for yourselves. It’s very real.
[…] Steve’s Remote Clicker has this disturbing image used in an advertisement. […]
http://www.benq.com.cn/musiq/ points to a Chinese site for a Chinese audience who strangely enough might not be quite as offended as you are at the depiction of tragic events that happened in a largely alien nation 10,000 miles away whose social mores they largely do not share. Kinda like anti-porn protestors buying access to cable and complaining about the amount of flesh they now have access to. It’s a Chinese site for Chinese people so looking at this in order to be offended is foolish at best. Move along, there is nothing to be seen here (unless you actuallly WANT to be offended).
The ad is real, but the textual errors are too numerous and obvious to have been made by any marketing department:
These are probably a result of the poor (unofficial) translation from the original Chinese ad by the person who screencapped and photoshopped this image to present it to an English-speaking audience.
Also, it’s mistranslated. The real translation of the chinese text is:
“Even if the world crumbles, I still believe in music”
which doesn’t make it that offensive, does it?
This is a Taiwanese website from what I understand, but tastelessness about other cultures’ tragedies seems to be cultural for them. A couple of years ago, a Hong Kong clothing store chain did a marketing program based on Third Reich imagery, complete with SS lightening bolts. For them, it was exotic. Wasn’t there also a restaurant recently somewher in China with a Hitlerian theme?
people do stuff like this all the time, and then, when it gets in an advertisement, the american people are offended.. the american people are always offended!!
There is nothing cool about the WTC ruins…
No matter what Taiwanese electronics company BenQ would have you think. The Chinese text on the attached ad (for one of their mp3 players) reads: “Though the world be destroyed, I will still believe in music.” More at Danwei, Gizmodo, Engadget and st…
It’s not a matter of being “offended” so much as it’s a distasteful thing to use real life catastrophe as stock imagery. Over on digg, someone commented that WWII imagery is used regularly today. As I said above, dramatizations and recreations are ok with me. I would never want to see an actual picture of the Hiroshima mushroom cloud used as an image for a consumer electronics device, but I could see something based on that event used in advertising. It’d still be in very poor taste but I wouldn’t blog about it.
[…] Steve’s Remote Clicker has this disturbing image used in an advertisement. […]
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