More on AOL bad propaganda

By J.UL1R4

According to brand republic, AOL are spending £15 million in the first quarter alone on their political book burning rebranding exercise, which is "intended to encourage consumers to see AOL in a different light as it attempts to banish perceptions of being ‘too American’ and the ’safe option’"

"The ads, created by Grey London, use the strapline ‘What do you think?’ Running across TV, outdoor, press, cinema and online, the work is part of a broader brand overhaul that AOL hopes will help attract a new type of consumer over the next 18 months."

One would expect the only type of customer that to be attracted would be the same as the previous demographic for AOL: those who know nothing about the internet to begin with and who presumbably don’t know a great deal about AOL ( ^{1 2 3})

"Broadband is growing faster than ever, and nearly 60% of the UK is connected to the internet via broadband, according to the Office for National Statistics. In light of this, AOL is aiming to differentiate itself from the competition by not positioning solely on speed and price, says chief marketing officer Tobin Ireland*."

*(The same Tobin Ireland who was "Commercial Director at Sky Interactive")

There is good reason why ISPs (or any businesses) don’t do what AOL are doing, and it’s because they have the sense not to put themselves into the intensely political position (especially a pre-sales position) of propagandizing an inherently political as well as false, misleading and inflammatory debate.

‘We have seen a massive focus on price and speed, but not on some of the serious issues raised by the internet,’ he says. ‘There is a substantial debate about the internet’s impact on people’s lives, which is being missed."

AOL have decided to manufacture their own political debate, inventing and exploiting a false and misleading and deliberately constructed artifical scenario that uses deeply political ideas, icons and a selected mis-sold combination of dangerous and fraudulent assumptions to create an outrageous hodgepodge of shameful garbage to inflame people enough to visit their website.

What is worse, it sounds like they haven’t even really got a new product to sell, so it is a rebranding excerise that relies on fearmongering and the abysmal and extraordinarly strained and degenerate politics of the day to re-peddle essentially the same old gatekeeper drivel that have made AOL the laughing stock of the internet for over a decade.

AOL’s campaign is £15 millon worth of gratuitous, inflammatory, misleading, and entirely political garbage.

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