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Wednesday, November 23, 2005

"You Are Germany"

A photo from 1935 is making its way through the German blogspace.

First, you need to know there is a huge marketing campaign running in Germany for the past weeks. Its slogan: “You are Germany” (“Du bist Deutschland”). It’s intended to tell everyone in Germany that you can achieve something, that you shouldn’t complain and be lazy, and so on. The campaign has been created by Hamburg’s Jung von Matt advertisement agency and uses a whole lot of German B stars (like talk show hosts and such). I have to say the various TV spots for “You are Germany” were always slightly embarrassing; over the top well-intended, cheesy, and politically correct to the point any information delta got lost. Online, the campaign spawned quite a few parodies – which ironically are ranking better in Google for the slogan than the official campaign microsite.

Now, back to that photo, which as has now been agreed on is 99% not photoshopped (people say it’s from a book titled “Ludwigshafen - ein Jahrhundert in Bildern” – a century in pictures). What does it show? It shows a public Nazi convention, a poster with the face of Adolf Hitler, and in big bold letters the slogan: “’Cause you are Germany” (“Denn Du bist Deutschland”). This gives the 2005 campaign a ridiculously new spin, because it shows Nazis used similar phrases and wording. It actually could be considered a mere PR blunder and doesn’t at all mean the current campaign is fascist, but it’s certainly even more embarrassing than the ads themselves. And German blogspace is on fire...

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