Maximum pleasure
The title sponsor of the Davidoff Swiss Indoors tournament presents itself on the website of the tournament with the following prose:
Isn't this beautifully said? The merchants of Davideath do not only stretch their brand, they also stretch their advertising rhetoric beyond irony and antiphrasis, exploring new territories of human gullibity: "The Good Life" is their "open Sesame" to profitability from selling a deadly product to those influenceable enough to buy this kind of B.S. Just in the same way they are selling Gauloises (another Imperial Tobacco brand), a product that traps people in addiction, under the slogan "Freedom forever."
However, reality has a strong tendency to strike back, often at the moment least expected.
When you see Davidoff The Good Life, Davideath The Ugly Death may not be far away. Actually, it just takes a pack of Davidoff Gold cigarettes sold in Switzerland to have that experience. The back side of the pack offers an extraordinary juxtaposition where reality does hit hard indeed. But at least, Zino Davidoff being quoted saying that "these carefully selected tobaccos have been skillfully blended to assure your pleasure" does not run the risk of being contradicted by the corpse of the former smoker in the morgue!
OxyRomandie beats Davideath in Basel 6-0 6-0
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V as in Victory |
Geneva, 14 November 2009 - The Swiss tobacco consortium, which calls itself the "Oettinger Davidoff Group" and is an extension of multinational Imperial Tobacco Group PLC, has initiated legal action against OxyRomandie. In a super-provisional request addressed to the civil court in Basel, they have accused OxyRomandie and Pascal Diethelm, its president, of violating their property rights over the Davidoff brand by mutilating it with the word "death" and the image of a skull. They requested that the www.davideathswissindoors.ch website be shut down and that reference to the website and its logo be removed from the www.oxyromandie.ch website. They have finally indicated their intent to file a complaint for libel. |
Other Big Lies
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When we received our copy of the super-provisional request submitted to the civil court of Basel (Civil Gericht Basel-Stadt) by Oettinger Imex AG and Davidoff & Cie SA, the two tobacco companies, we couldn't believe our eyes: it contained blatantly false statements on two crucial points. We raised this issue during the hearing on 13 November, and the judge, Dr. A Heierli, concurred with our finding. |
Are the Swiss Indoors doomed?
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Would it be that the Davidoff Swiss Indoors giant, in spite of its superb arrogance, is a vulnerable Achilles, and that a few determined public health advocates can easily provoke his downfall? Let us say right away that, if there are no Davidoff Swiss Indoors in 2010, it will not be the fault of a "bunch of anti-smoking activists" - an easy scapegoat for those who do not want to face their responsibilities. It will be because Mr. Breenwald has opted for the ostrich policy, ignoring that the world around Basel has changed since 1994. |
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