Dubit
Well, I suppose I should be talking about the terrorist atrocities in Mumbai today; but I’m not going to. I don’t think that there’s anything useful I can say. Like everybody else, I can’t get hold of all the information I’d need to make a truly insightful opinion, but it’s not just that. What could anyone say that we don’t all already feel?
So, Mumbai taken away, I’m innocently flicking about the television this morning, wondering if I should write about the silly reaction to snow that my country displays despite the fact that less than a century before it used to snow for about ten percent of each year. Still, I needed a little anger today to write, and the soft quiet that snow brings to my little city, the sense of peace and solidity somewhat neuters and bad feelings I might have towards it, even if those feelings come from other’s reactions.
Then the huge magic glass of frustration that sits in my living room dutifully delivered up a nice fresh packet of the excrement of humanity. A program about the nature of cool (not very interesting), but the segment… well, it made me wish that I had something to pray to.
‘It’s a good career to go into’, says mum of six-year-old Oliver. And what ‘career’ can a six year old have? Aggressive marketing. He tries to get his friends to buy things from Nintendo by talking about Nintendo products in school assemblies, in class presentations using PowerPoint and such, but mostly just by talking up to the products to other children. Did I mention that Nintendo use these ‘people’? I use ‘people’ in the loosest possible sense here, to include the lowest form of reptilian monstrosity that your imagination can summon. Oliver’s mother (who’s eleven-year-old daughter Amy also works for this group of utter contemptible money cultists) is not a bad parent per se; by any measurable means she provides for her children, and doubtless dotes upon them. But, for the record, I’d take her kids into care. ‘They are part of an elite community’, she brags. Now, there’s thinking that your kids are special when they’re not, there’s thanking that they are more popular and significant than they actually are, and then there’s that tosh. Then, way, way after that and much further down the road to damnation, there’s allowing them to be used as a corporate mouthpiece.
‘Dubit’, the devils doorknockers in question, recruits ‘Cool kids’, then companies (like Nintendo) give them some free examples to give away to the cool kids, who in turn agree to promote them to the rest of the kids, who then badger their parents to buy them. Wow. Do you remember when you thought you’d finally become so cynical that nothing could really be so low as to be unexpectedly awful? Well, you live and you learn eh? They recruit from 5. 5-year-olds. I’d just like to say that again. 5-year olds. You can’t tie your own shoelaces yet, but you can still shift product for Nintendo.
‘[Oliver]’s really into Nintendo’, says the not-very-cool-but clearly-thinks-she-is and frankly a middle-class demi-chav-with-a-degree twenty-something representative of Dubit, as if it justifies anything at all. Of course he is, you soul-destroying cretin, he’s six. He’d like a shiny penny too if you waved it in front of his face.
‘If the company is happy to give things away for children to sell, then I can’t see why they shouldn’t’, says their Mum, or at least something very close to that that I can’t be arsed to watch again, for I fear I might vomit. Because you are that child’s ethical conscience, maybe?
Currently they’re promoting that ‘Animal Crossing’ thing. Amy’s ‘bigging it up’ in chatrooms like a dutiful little drone. Of course, she likes it too. And doubtless next week she’ll be into something else. Plus, she got it for free. She has no concept at all of how much it costs in real terms. The ‘pester power’ she generates will earn the company (Nintendo, Nintendo, Nintendo) a ridiculous amount of revenue, but just because something is effective doesn’t mean that you should do it. We can all think of morally bankrupt things that would work but that we shouldn’t do. We could place chips in people’s heads to help them make the ‘right’ choices (actually, with the DS lifestyle coach, Nintendo are already heading there). Or men could effectively neuter the power of women in the world, as they did for so long to their own benefit, by pouring cutesy associations with vacuous pink fluffy things with puppies and kittens upon them and the idea of femininity itself until nobody can take women any more seriously than they would a ten-year-old (Nintendo). Or we could force people to replace the interaction they have with their friends into avatars of our own design over which they have little influence in order… hold on…
Anyway, the hatred I have for all aspects of Nintendo’s impact upon the world aside, I am reserving the finest, most acidic and smelliest of my bile for Dubit. I find this part of their company’s mission statement particularly interesting: ‘We are responsible, we care for your customer, we keep young people at the centre of your campaign, and we enjoy our work. We like to think we make the future a brighter one for our youth.’ In response, and in order: No, no, well duh, and you have to be joking, surely. Making the future brighter for our youth is most certainly not going to be achieved by making five-year-olds into salesmen. Hell, making anyone into a salesman is essentially an act Amnesty should campaign against (as anyone who’s ever stepped into a mobile phone shop or estate agent’s can testify), let alone a child.
I also like “*No teenagers were harmed in the making of this site.” The fact that people might very well suspect that to the point that you have to declare it is a fair indication of what you’re up to, people. Also, is that an admittance that encouraging a five-year-old see all of his interactions with his friends as a chance for promotion is maybe a bit damaging?
Here’s some more about their ‘ethos’ (of all things), quoted in its entirety, actually:
“Dubit have young people’s best interests at heart. Through caring for the youth market, in both the approach and the campaign outcomes, Dubit create a long-lasting relationship and understanding between the client and the young person.
We want to change marketing for the better. We must treat young people as intelligent, valuable individuals: not as stereotypes or inferior customers.”
By turning them into salesmen, then. Moving on to their real concerns in the very next sentence:
“We are not social workers – this is good commercial sense. Caring for the young consumer through taking the time to understand them and provide positive experiences for them cements a brand as a partner in the young mind. This is customer care for the future.”
Or brand brainwashing at its very best, take your pick.
“To understand more about our approach to young people, and how we want brighter futures for our youth, speak to Ian, on 0113-2501101. Or email him at ian@dubit.co.uk. He’s an enthusiast.”
Go on. Tell him what you think. I’m sure he’d love to hear.
There’s tons of this kind of horrify PR-speak on their site. Have a look for yourself: http://www.dubitlimited.com/
These people epitomise everything that is wrong about a culture that exists seemingly solely to quantify everything into pounds, shillings and pence alone. Direct marketing by corporations through children is an act so despicable that it should make us all feel ashamed to share a planet with it, let alone a culture. How the people who do this can stand to catch sight of their own reflections without trying to claw their own eyes out is beyond me. Even being vaguely involved in something like this should make you want to open a vein and spray the last of your life into a pattern reading ‘no more five-year-old corporate sales monkeys’. With this going on with the tacit approval of everyone, what hope to we have for the future – we may be very good a making money by any means, but we are truly bankrupt, my friends, truly bankrupt.
The show itself goes on to discuss cool by talking to some of the most pathetic, image-obsessed people I’ve ever had the misfortune to see. Queuing up round the block for limited edition trainers, anyone? Get out more (somewhere other than a bloody shoe-shop you vacuous idiot). Never mind that they’re made in sweatshops.
Oh, in case you were wondering, the insight that the filmmaker has to offer at the end of all this is ‘cool people don’t care what’s cool’. Well thanks. Congratulations on telling me something I knew that before the program started, (and I’m betting he did too) whilst simultaneously invalidating the premise of your entire project and essentially telling every member of the audience that you’ve just wasted their time.
As a final thought, I’d just like to tell you that ‘Dubit’ keeps its offices in Leeds. I’m not in anyway trying to encourage you to harass them in any way. Here, just for reference, then, are their contact details:
The Half Roundhouse
Roundhouse Business Park
Wellington Road
Leeds
LS12 1DR
Tel: 0113 3947920
email: enquiry@dubit.co.uk
Go nuts.