Knock It Off, Nigel

Good news all – there’s a new “Knock Off Nigel” campaign airing on TV and radio (in reality this has been running for a few weeks now, but since ITV has seemingly given up for the summer – apart from ITV4’s Tour coverage – and Channel 4 is a no go area for me with its horrific BB programming, I’ve not seen the ad at all). For the uninitiated, this is a campaign targeting people who download pirate films from the internet. The campaign targets them as being “Knock Off Nigels” because they’re so cheap. Both radio and television campaigns are accompanied by an annoying catchy ditty that’s sung in a variety of styles. Obviously, during a credit crunch, being “cheap” is probably a wise and sensible attitude to take – just as long as you’re not downloading films. Thinking about it, perhaps I won’t spend £19 to see Batman in the Odeon Leicester Square after all. After all, it’ll be cheaper on Blu-Ray than that when it comes out, and that’s for one solitary person (OK – the most expensive seats, but really!).
I say the ad’s “catchy” – but it’s only catchy in the same way syphilis is. It has the same broad appeal as someone running their fingernails down a blackboard. I suppose that means that it gets noticed. But is it effective?
Well undoubtedly piracy of films and DVDs is a big problem, but equating the people who do it to people who steal cash from their mum’s purse (as the official website does) is just unrealistic. Are people who download movies social parriahs? Not really any more so than people who buy dodgy DVDs from blokes outside pubs or at car boot sales. I guess that’s what the ad’s trying to do, although you might question the effectiveness of it from some of the comments accompanying the ad on Youtube (I refuse to embed the ad because it’s hideous).
The problem they face is that downloading films comes across as victimless. If I did steal a tenner from my mum, then she’d be down ten pounds. But if I download a film, only the film companies are going to be out any cash, and we all know that they’re vast corporations raking the cash in and paying their stars ridiculous amounts of money for minimal amounts of work. I’m not saying that this is the right attitude, but it’s a prevalent one.
When it comes to it, I want to see The Dark Knight in all its widescreen Dolby Digital IMAX glory and not see something somebody shot with their Handycam in a busy cinema.
Anyway, I should leave the last word to those fine folk over at BrokenTV who came up with the poster below.
piracybig
“And for the DVD buying public, we can expect to suffer the perpetual indignity of being treated like filthy criminals no longer, being able to watch an episode of Arrested Development on shiny disc without having to suffer an unskippable lecture. Every. Single. Time.”
Incidentally, the Knock Off Nigel website allows you to download their “catchy” jingle as a mobile ringtone. Someone obviously sat down and noted that “kids” like downloading ringtones, so why not make it available? In real life it hasn’t really become more popular than the Nokia ringtone has it?
The real final word comes from The IT Crowd:


Posted

in

Tags: