Here’s a campaign that’s too relevant for comfort. Merkley + Partners get cozy with the Ad Council — which was recently in bed with the US Army for a grammatically icky and unconvincing get-edumakayted campaign — to inflict fear upon teens for more conservative internet practices.
Part peer pressure, part plain creepiness and all mortification, the spots are entitled Bulletin Board and Everyone Knows Your Name. A typically over-informative PR tells us it’s meant to raise awareness about online sexual exploitation but could just as easily be a cautionary wrist-slap over the ever-growing epidemic of Google-happy employers.
Entitled “Think Before You Post,” the campaign was recently presented to the Powers that Be in DC, including the Department of Justice (DOJ), the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), the Advertising Council and U.S. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. We’re not sure what they can do about MySpace jailbait, but we’re sure they’ll talk our damn heads off while grasping for the appropriate straws.
