There's no such thing as a free lunch...Or is there?

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It's official. The next president of Indonesia is former army general Prabowo Subianto. Quite how the next five years will pan out is anyone's guess but hopefully the foreign pundits who always bring up his dodgy human rights record will be proven wrong. Nonetheless, on policy making, Prabowo's popularist move to literally offer the poor 'a free lunch' every day of the week does not augur well for the future. Such a policy - if it ever came to fruition - would cost a phenomenal amount of money and likely lead to huge inefficiencies (food waste) and poor incentives (make people lazy). Another concern is Prabowo's strong nationalist bent. Thus, in the possible event that he finds himself with his back against the proverbial wall in the face of stern economic challenges, there is a big chance that he will simply scapegoat foreigners. But he will have to be careful. Construction of the new capital city, Nusantara, for example, is highly dependent on foreign in
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Nexian Pad G311 and other Indonesian advertising gems

Heading back from the “Big Mangga” along Jalan Gunung Sehari and I see this:

Nexian Pad G311 ad 
 
WTF! You must be thinking what I’m thinking, right?

apple logo
Certainly enough to make ole Steve Jobs turn around in his grave a few times before he’s on the blower to one of his writ-loving lawyers. And you can be sure that his lawyers would be onto this in a jiffy. In fact, why aren’t they? Is it cos Apple Indonesia don’t care? I doubt it. Perhaps they simply don’t know.

Some particularly objectionable advertising at the current time are the TV ads by so-called Intersport, the main sponsor of the English football Premier League.

Intersport logo 
 
Why am I drawing attention to a sports company ad you ask? Well, that’s the whole point – it’s not a real sports company - but a pretend one set up by one of the large Indonesian kretek cigarette producers to sneakily circumvent anti-tobacco advertising laws. Not good. Not good at all.

As for really ridiculous ads, this one I spotted near Tanah Abang in central Jakarta really takes the biscuit.

Kapal Api kopi 

I mean it’s not as if we drink coffee to stop our butts from freezing off is it? This is the tropics for God’s sake! A lot better was a rather creative ad on Miss V, although it sadly never made it past the drawing board stage. As for sexist ads, there is – would you believe – an ad being shown on Indonesian TV at the moment in which a guy’s pair of false teeth go flying out of his mouth only to land in the cleavage of an attractive looking girl sitting nearby. Whatever will they think of next? Anyone for a biscuit?

Arnotts Indonesia

Comments

  1. Unknown4 December 2011 at 10:47

    In sogo central park, they are playing a video to sell bras, where a rather stunning woman is taking photos of herself and sending them via the internet, fantastically illegal here yet no one has noticed, well i did and would. Perhaps you should set up a photoblog for the best of indonesian ad campaigns?

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