That’s the question Caleb Howe is trying to figure out over at Redstate today. I’m going to link him twice to make sure that you go and read his work because it’s an example of quite remarkable reporting.
Besides if you don’t read his post you won’t get the full story and you might not fully understand how I came to my conclusions.
The basic summary is that the History Channel in all likelihood didn’t commission or run these anti-American ads (click to enlarge):
And this anti-Christian/western ad (click to enlarge):
However, the ad agency which works for the History Channel (among many others), Ogilvy & Mather, did commission the ads then brand them with History Channel logos and even submit them to the prestigious CLIO awards. And what’s worse is that these absurd ads actually won a CLIO award.
Now, again, Caleb Howe has great insights into all the things wrong with this situation and these ads so go read his post. But, he doesn’t go quite far enough down the CLIO trail. There is definitely a lot more to this.
I mean, sure, I could buy that the award ceremony disregards political messages and judges the entries based off of their creativity and visual appeal… except that those ads are neither creative or visually appealing. They look like something a 6 year old made in paint on windows 95. For goodness sake if that’s all it takes to reach the pinnacle of print advertising then sign me the heck up!
I’ll be raking in the millions in no time and I can barely get by with my cheap rip off of photo shop. Seriously, look at those pictures. It’s just a quick and simple cut and past job. And a crappy one at that. Those stupid billboards couldn’t look less like they were a part of the picture. Over all this potential campaign is just a worthless piece of crap.
So that leads me to this question: HOW THE HECK DID THIS WIN A PRESTIGIOUS AWARD???
Despite the in depth analysis a screaming question like that might seem to require I can offer only this: It’s anti-American political message. Nothing else makes a lick of sense.