from the 'offensively bad idea' department

[coraa]

Wow.

"EA has a new way to annoy its own models: give out prizes for Comic Con attendees who commit acts of lust with their booth babes. Also, if you win, you get to take the lady out to dinner! This is going to end well for everyone involved."

What the hell? I mean, I've been annoyed by booth babes before, mostly because I think that it really reinforces the idea that it's only men who are their audience -- and also because the degree of objectification makes me squidgy -- but that sounds downright innocent compared to 'Commit random acts of lust with our models, take pictures of it, repeat, and you might win a sinful night with two beautiful women!' (And yeah, the 'acts of lust' and 'sinful night' wordings are right out of their ad. I'm not extrapolating anything.)

Because, you know, it's a great idea to literally reward stalking and groping with a date with a beautiful woman! That's a message we want to spread. And also, do these booth babes wear big signs or something? Is there some protection to keep non-EA-employee attractive women from being 'mistaken' for booth babes and, well, 'act of lust'-ed?

Argh.

EA, I love The Sims, but this is Not On.

EDIT: jmpava pointed out that these are the same geniuses who thought it was a good idea to promote their game (the same game, so probably the same Marketing/PR group) by staging a fake Christian protest. Which doesn't make it any less offensive, but geez, the stupidity....

Comments

[donaithnen.livejournal.com]

That sounds horribly wrong on so many levels...

[donaithnen.livejournal.com]

Okay, one possible upside. The ad promises that the person who molests the booth babes the most gets to spend "a SIN full night" with them afterwards. So, aggravated assault and/or murder qualifies as a sin, right? Perhaps the "lucky" "winner" will get rewarded with some two on one (baseball bat) action :)

[coraa.livejournal.com]

I like the way you think!

I keep thinking that maybe I should introduce the EA booth to the other six deadly sins. Like Wrath. Or Greed. Or maybe Gluttony -- perhaps those booth babes would like to go, fully dressed and unmolested, and eat five pizzas and three beers with me?

[donaithnen.livejournal.com]

That would qualify as a "Sin full" night. However they're unfortunately specific about the particular sin you need to commit in order to win in the first place. However to continue in the nit-picky vein, it doesn't actually specify the acts of lust have to be committed with/on the booth babes, just that you need to be with them in the photo. Technically speaking you could have someone take a picture of you making out with jmpava in front of one of the booth babes and that would fit their requirements. I'm not sure how likely they it is that they would judge a picture that didn't actually involve the booth babes the winner though =P

[coraa.livejournal.com]

That's true! I could commit tonsil-hockey with jmpava in front of a bemused booth babe, and then take them on a 'sinful' night of Envy and Gluttony without a speck of Lust. ;)

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Yeah. It's just... what were they thinking?

[donaithnen.livejournal.com]

Well clearly the _only_ think they were thinking was that they would get a lot of attention from horny guys... in fact they seem to be suffering from the same single minded (or perhaps half brained?) focus that they presumably have in common with their apparent target audience =P

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Ha. S'true. And given how "intelligently" they've run their other Dante's Inferno campaigns ("Hey, guys, we've offended Christians and people who don't like being lied to already, why don't we go offend women too?"), I think somebody needs to be, uh, reprimanded at EA marketing. :P