Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

Re: John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

KNIGHT RIDER — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 14:12:36 -0000

THE FOUNDATION FOR LAW AND GOVERNMENT
A FREE-LANCE LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY CALLED

THE LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES WERE HELPLESS
THESE WERE THE KIND OF CRIMINALS WHO OPERATE
ABOVE THE LAW NOBODY COULD TOUCH THEM.
KNIGHT INDSTRIES FIVE THOUSAND KITT
A WAY TO FIGHT IN THE WORLD OF CRIMINALS WHO
OPERATE ABOVE THE LAW, TO CHAMPION THE CAUSE OF
THE INNOCENT, THE HELPLESS, THE POWERLESS. FLAG

Re: John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

Ned — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 13:12:59 -0000

To those who criticize the OLPC cause: I'm an American journalist living in a developing country (which is also a major OLPC recipient) and getting computers into the hands of regular people is very important.

Yes, obviously water and medication are very important. But so are computers and the ability it gives them to find jobs in the future. The average person here who is given a computer does not use it for games and porn - sometimes they use it for information, and other times it's to learn important skills that WILL put the food and medication on the table. I know of programs here that teach kids everything from basic emailing, to computer coding, to stop motion animation.

Let's face it: for a country to really advance in the world today its citizens need to be computer literate, and this charity is doing more than any to build those skills.

Re: John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

paul — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 22:53:09 -0000

Hopefully the kids who get these things will find better uses for
technology than this train wreck of an ad.

Re: John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

Jake — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 22:33:21 -0000

Who's John Lennon?

Re: John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

Barbara — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 12:28:27 -0000

I'm a 1949 baby boomer, and I think this ad is creepy. I've considered buying/
donating the OLPC several times but haven't done it yet and now probably
never will.

Re: John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

Ajax Jones — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 06:38:58 -0000

Can't someone like TED put a definitive ordered list
together so that there is a real priority list. Like water wells at the top
and PC's to play games and surf porn at the bottom or something :)

Then at least do-gooders would know where best to expend their effort.

Re: John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

Tyler — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 22:14:53 -0000

The charity is actually a good one. It's not really about a laptop; it's about information and education.

Obviously, food and clean water are higher on the list of immediate needs, but education is the key to ending the cycle of poverty.

Still, terrible commercial.

Re: John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

Anna — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 21:30:08 -0000

Am I the only person who finds this to be one of the most pointless charities in exuistance?

Re: John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

kerrin — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 21:25:00 -0000

Yoko could be blamed for everything bad in the world since 1970: including this awful commercial.

Re: John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

nicbot — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 20:27:13 -0000

Fail 1: Although information access might be important to little girls in Africa, I
think food, shelter, medicine, education and security probably ranks a bit higher.

Fail 2: Using a British pop icon who died in 1980 to promote technology in
3rd world nations is just plain ridiculous and irresponsible to boot.

Fail 3: It's a voice over! That's like some crazy Milli Vanilli sh*&

Re: John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

ajax jones — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:01:13 -0000

How many gun and munition factories are there in these places.

I think JL would have wanted those stopped first before we
offload some crappy linux / windows CE PC on them.
Geez, so all these kids can now work in call centers and delete spam
from their mail for the rest of their lives.

perhaps the world needs less PC

Re: John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

Ricky — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:25:58 -0000

I'm not sold on it. Why couldn't they find living inspirational public figure instead?

Re: John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

kelly — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:39:50 -0000

perhaps some food and shelter would be more appropriate for
many of these children

Re: John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

dmw — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:25:35 -0000

It's in poor taste and pretty darn bizarre.

Re: John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

Ryan — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:56:09 -0000

Not bad taste but poor execution.
My roomate brought one of these computers home and they suck.
I dont see the value in it at all.
It would not connect to the internet and was so slow It was useless.
The design is cool but the os blows.

Re: John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

Michael Kimsal — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 15:28:40 -0000

The voice impression was horrible. No idea who did the voice work, but some
Beatle impersonators are better than this. Most people try too hard to
put some sort of heavy Scouse accent on when trying to impersonate the Beatles,
and inevitably they go way overboard.

Was sort of hoping they'd taken actual John audio conversation and mixed up the
various words in to whatever message they wanted to get across.

Re: John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

Kevin — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 15:27:37 -0000

I'm not sold. Not very compelling at all.. thumbs down.

Re: John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

Jackie — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 15:02:03 -0000

Agreed. You only get one chance to grab a person's attention with a tactic like this...at least make it engaging and thought-provoking.

At least the repurposed Coors Lite NFL ads make me laugh (http://www.youtube.com/watc......

Re: John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

Tom — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 14:55:06 -0000

Good message and objective delivered at least poorly, maybe objectionably. Not that I personally object - I kind of like the idea (I liked "Free As A Bird" featuring deceased Lennon, for example). But as others have said, it does not have a positive impact - the realization the VO is faked to evoke Lennon distracts from the message at best, especially with the â€œForrest Gumpâ€-like treatment at the end. Even with the buzz here, the buzz is about the Lennon VO, not the content. Still, buzz is buzz, and I would be very curious to learn the net results from OLPC about 3 months from now.

Re: John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

Jack — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 14:45:57 -0000

Ugh, shudder. Approved or not, this is in very poor taste. It reminds me of the Lennon scene in Forrest Gump, minus all impact, art & context.

Re: John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

Stefan — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 13:27:43 -0000

OZ (10): What we're doing here is building negative attitude against the brand
which is equal to no good! Mission far from accomplished.

Re: John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

oz — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 13:16:30 -0000

you guys are blogging and commenting about it. mission accomplished

Re: John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

Jim — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 13:16:28 -0000

It's a terrible ad. I don't know about tasteless but it fails on pretty much every level. The voiceover doesn't even sound as good as a bad imitation of Lennon, for Pete's sake!

Re: John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

Guest — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 13:15:57 -0000

It feels creepy to me.

Re: John Lennon OLPC Ad: Poor Taste?

Tyler — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 13:14:33 -0000

As a Beatle fan, I think this is terrible.
As a marketer, I think this is terrible.
As a hater of bad impressions, I think this is terrible.

People have used John Lennon's likeness to sell stuff since Beatlemania.
However, it seems that there's something different when you're literally putting words into his mouth.

The voiceover/impression are just awful. Great cause. Terrible ad.