Fire, fire upon your wicked tongue

[austin_dern]

SMRT, which runs two of the three mass transit rail lines and most of the bus services, is holding a contest; with each SMRT trip you get a chance to win a car. This apparently self-defeating promotion advertises itself with a picture of a New Beetle set on the tracks at Choa Chu Kang station, pulled up to the platform.

Here's the thing. The background of the picture is a lovely grassland and forest. Choa Chu Kang is in the middle of suburbs. There's exactly one spot on the platform where you might take a picture with only one background building in view in a spot that might be hidden by the car frame. But they didn't even do that; the trees don't match the real setting, the signs don't match the actual signs, and there's a balcony cut in the floor in the real station where the picture shows solid tiling.

A car at the MRT platform is a fine image, but why do they go out of their way to lie about what station it's at? Why identify a station at all? If they had to identify one, why not use the one where the picture was taken? I know advertisers lie habitually, but why this lie? Choa Chu Kang's an older town with its own Light Rail Transit loop, but does that make it more distinctly Singapore than Sembawang or Yishun?

Trivia: The English East India Company bought its first ship, the Susan, on 25 September 1600. Source: Nathaniel's Nutmeg, Giles Milton.

Currently Reading: Naked Airport: A cultural history of the world's most revolutionary structure, Alastair Gordon.

Comments

[buran.livejournal.com]

How about a screenshot, if it's a TV ad, or a scan if it's a print ad? I gotta see this. Does it have rail wheels or road wheels?

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

The picture's taken from the platform, so the wheels are pretty obscured. I believe -- though I'm not positive -- it was regular wheels, as in they really just matted together pictures (it'd be hard to disrupt MRT service just for a picture shoot like that, though I suppose SMRT would be able to get train service redirected to the other platform for the couple hours needed). I'll try to get a picture of it.

[argon-centaur.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'd like to see the ad, and if possible a picture of the actual place from the same angle, if you have time and it's possible. It's be interesting to compare.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I will try to get pictures of both, yes. The one challenge is I can't get pictures off my digital camera until I get the iBook back; but, I will try in that window between when I get it back and when I leave for home. The contest runs through next year so the advertising should stay up a while anyway.