You’d have thought, over the years, given the abysmal failure of Don’t Copy That 2, the patronising You Wouldn’t Steal A Car adverts and Neil Kinnock’s “well alright!” speech at the Sheffield rally in 1992, suits would have given up trying to “engage” with patronisingly-stereotyped “young people.”
You’d also be wrong. The latest attempt (as reported by El Reg) comes from cybersecurity firm Symantec, “collaborating” with Snoop Dogg to launch a competition to find the best rap about Internet security and cybercrime.
Using the thoroughly “down wiv da kidz” title of HackIsWack.com, it offers a prize consisting of “2 tickets to Snoop concert, meet his mgmt/agent, Toshiba laptop” (their formatting, not mine) and says that entries will be judged based on originality, creativity and message.
Unsurprisingly, El Reg is unimpressed. Neither is anyone else.
I can’t help but think that this is an attempt by Symantec to try to stay relevant in the consumer security market, where the growth of free solutions such as AVG Anti-Virus and Microsoft Security Essentials (along with more robust security built into Windows itself) means the only reason you’d buy Norton AntiVirus is if you’re misinformed, or an idiot. This could well be part of the strategy that’s led to the recent proliferation of the awful Norton Security Scan… but that’s another story.
Remember MS’s ill-fated get the facts campaign? Well… they’re at it again.