Spitting fire

Babble on.

My intrepid Barrie Correspondent - the one who's never seen a bus window he didn't want to put his ass through, at great personal expense to me - has e-mailed me photos from a most unique beer ad campaign. Here's one of them:



My friend had been led to believe this was a World Cup publicity push...

What? All right, if you're one of those poor desolate souls who aren't following the bouncing ball here, the World Cup...*sigh*...of soccer...is being held in Germany this year. Right now, as I type this, in fact. Get it? Good, now stay with the tour, and try to keep up.

As I was saying, although my friend had been led to believe the Spitfire beer ads were released in time for the World Cup this year, it turns out they've been around since at least 2000, and maybe as far back as a decade ago.

Here's my question: are the ads funny and clever, are they hateful and offensive, or do they fall somewhere in between those two extremes?

The rest of that campaign can be found here, with subsequent campaigns here, here, here (please tell me someone else gets the brilliant "Fantasy Eleven" reference), and here.

It's interesting to note that formal complaints were filed about some of the ads, they were pulled from the Underground, but both the German embassy and the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK didn't object to the content.

Personally, I think they dance right on the line between 'funny' and 'in poor taste'. The "downed all over Kent" line made me laugh out loud. The SS lightning bolts, not so much.

But the real tipping point for me is that some of the proceeds from the sale of the 'Bottle of Britain' go to to the RAF Benevolent Fund and other charities:

Spitfire's success has soared since it was introduced as a charity beer in 1990, marking the 50th anniversary of RAF's defeat of the Luftwaffe. The beer's huge popularity has seen it raise over £100,000 for various charities to date.

Tallyho, gents.

Babble off.