The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

UK media consultant dupes 2.4m randy YouTubers

Symrstar

Wow. 

Paris Hilton

Now only if it was Paris would I watch. Then I would join the masses and oggle.

mezla

And the Reg has learnt this lesson too... 

Jobs Horns

Hence the subtitle containing the phrase "Hot Girl Sex"... and attracting young men... ahem.

Peter

Even that is not enough 

There are still loads of complete morons who get into their car when drunk, partly because it's apparently still culturally OK to get yourself half paralytic before climbing behind the wheel..

Personally I think someone who has been found drunk behind the wheel should have his/her license removed as unfit to be on the road at all, and those who cause an accident with injury should be charged with attempted murder. Where there are deaths it *is* murder, premeditated as you had the chance to avoid it by taking alternative transport (or let someone else dribve) and didn't - the consequences of that make distressing statistics until it's someone near. Can you live with the idea of having killed your friend?

When you get into a car you should be 100% competent to drive - not half asleep, not drugged, not drunk. If not you MUST be held accountable for your actions - I personally don't care at all if you park yourself permanently against a lump of concrete (a fine application of the Darwin principle) but the risk is that you destroy other lives in the process.

Car driving and drugs/alcohol use are mutually exclusive.

madra

@mezla 

Boffin

...and let's not forget the ever-present, pouting 'asus girl'

----

man with dark glasses because watching too many drink driving campaigns can make you go blind

Richard

Steamy windows? 

Paris Hilton

"'Approximately 10,000 young people from Lancashire voluntarily watched the clip. This is approximately 10 per cent of the target audience.'

The target audience is young men aged 17 to 25..."

I'm a bit confused as to the Lancastrian connection. Do 10% of young men live there? Or is it 10% of young men in a Hot-Girl-Starved area?

Paris, as she is classier than many of those west of the Pennines.

[Fanning the flames that are steaming the windows up]

David Wiernicki

@mezla 

Thumb Up

Yes, I'm sure that the Reg is struggling to break free of its traditional "octegenarian grandmother" viewership.

John Lettice

Re: Steamy windows? 

(Written by Reg staff)

The client was the Lancaster District Alcohol Harm Reduction Partnership, which wanted an anti drink drive campaign covering the local area. Combing the whole of YouTube to hit that target audience does seem a kind of round the houses way of going about things, but presumably they're happy...

Anton Ivanov

Well... It passes ASA standards criteria 

The advert has been screened on TV and has not been withdrawn due to complaints so I guess tastes differ. They could have used more gruesome footage at the end to properly drive the point through though.

Anonymous Coward

Lancashire 

It pops up in the "related" box for quite a lot of Lancashire-themed videos (try "Burnley redemption" for starters).

Anonymous Coward

@Peter 

Pirate

I think you're missing the same point as the legislature on this one:

The crime is not hitting someone, it's driving drunk in the first place.

As soon as you start the engine while drunk, you should face the same penalties as if you'd run over someone, because when you're incapable of properly controlling a car, hitting someone is not a volitional act or an additional act of negligence. The *only* volitional action, the *only* negligent action, was starting the car.

So one (heavy) penalty for all drink-drivers.

Lloyd

It's all wrong 

Thumb Up

They need to bring back 70's style public service announcements, the one's that scared the cr@p out of us as kids, or more Dennis Leary singing "he's an @sshole".

Graham Bartlett

Lancashire connection 

Gates Halo

I'm from Lancashire. And yes, I'm in a position to report that there are significantly less attractive girls up there. And the ones who are, they mostly stop being attractive the moment they start talking.

The one exception is Lancaster Uni - when we visited as part of our school's "find out where you want to go to uni" thing, it seemed to be the Hot Girl Concentrator for the whole of the north-west. Us lads appreciated this but weren't overly affected, but I swear they can't have needed to wash the floors for a month with our German teacher's tongue dragging on the ground. ;-)

The Billy G icon for no reason except that I like the idea of him hula-hooping with his head...

Stephen McLeod Blythe

Re: Lancashire connection 

Thumb Up

Graham - in these situations, we north of the border employ the "gaffa tape" method.

Dr Patrick J R Harkin

@Anonymous coward 

Pirate

"So one (heavy) penalty for all drink-drivers."

Agreed. If two drunk drivers each lose control and plough into a bus stop, the one who does it 2 minutes after the bus has gone gets done for drunk driving, the one who does it 2 minutes before gets done for causing death by dangerous driving, whereas the difference between them is only luck.

Abd it doesn't seem fair that the quality of care available at the local hospital can affect a jail sentence!

This post has been deleted by its author

Andy S

Government meaning of the word voluntary. 

"'Approximately 10,000 young people from Lancashire voluntarily watched the clip."

10,000 young people voluntarily tried to watch a completely different clip (ie porn), but got this advert instead. There is a subtle difference.

Although, anyone who has to rely on youtube to find porn on the net, really isn't trying hard enough

Pascal Monett

The crime is not . . 

So time for the fill-in-blanks exercise :

The crime is not ...., it's .... in the first place.

Here's my version : the crime is not gunning someone down, it's having a gun in the first place.

Your turn.

Anonymous Coward

Pascal Monett 

"The crime is not gunning someone down, it's having a gun in the first place."

Is not the same. In the car instance the above would be:

The crime is not killing someone whilst driving drunk, it's having a car in the first place.

I could quite legally own a firearm, or a car, and never commit a crime with them.

However, being under the influence with either one would leave me rather more prone to an accident, be it crashing, or a negligent discharge.

Mark Hartman

Addy material 

This scenario plays out every parent's worst nightmare. Way too many kids are getting killed in car crashes, and if it takes uber shock value to wake them up, let it be.

Someone hand that filmmaker an Addy!

David Gjester

El Reg as US style moral guardian 

Dead Vulture

Drunk driving is typically done by the demographic who would respond to that kind of keyword. Disappointing to see El Reg taking some weird American kind of moral stance on advertising?? Whats that all about?

Anonymous Coward

Huge penalties for victimless crimes? 

It might sound like a good idea to punish drunk-drivers severely even when nobody was hurt, but I'm generally very wary of treating victimless crimes too seriously. For example, it's open to abuse when the police can not be trusted. What would you do if you know you weren't drinking but the police say "Our computer says your blood sample contained such-and-such a level of alcohol so you're going to prison for ten years"?

Michael

@Peter 

Hmm, perhaps you should try that pontificating, holier than thou, I'd never do it thing again, but this time after 10 pints....then you'd probably see the problem.