Balloons And Slogans Make The Baby P Brand
DOES grandstanding on Baby P serve any useful purpose?
The Sun, which has made a land grab for Baby P’s resting place and all but renamed Baby P “Our Baby of Hearts”, features the release of balloons in the child’s honour.
It trills:
“Blue balloons soared heavenwards across Britain at 12:10pm yesterday – the exact time 16 months ago that Baby P was declared dead.”
Is 16 months an anniversary? Is David Dimbleby now the voice of the Sun? Substitute the words “Baby P” for “Princess Diana“. Are we suffering from mourning sickness?
The Sun mentions Angelica Terzoli, leader of the “Baby P crusade”.
She wants to “remember Baby P and the plight of other children who are suffering.”
No harm there. In helping us to think of child abuse neighbours and teachers may be more vigilant.
But aren’t balloons and slogans the stuff of marketing? The mums have a brand: “July ’07 Mummies.”
The Sun would like these people to be its readers. It’s all about market positioning. And Baby P is the Sun’s blonde-haired marketing tool. It’s a campaign.
It’s all so slick and contrived that readers begin to wonder who authentic the Sun is being.
Can all the hacks in the paper’s Whapping HQ believe in the paper’s campaign to own Baby P? Is there no-one at the Sun who looks at the pictures of weeping dads and caring mums on days out with the kiddies and sees irony in the Sun’s message to “Rest in Peace”?
Is the Sun’s narrative now overshadowing the campaign against child abuse? And if it is, then what purpose in grandstanding?
Posted: 4th, December 2008 | In: Key Posts, Reviews Comments (12) | TrackBack | Permalink
