Go home and reconsider those ads

Last week I was relieved to read that the Advertising Standards Authority had banned the ‘Go home or face arrest’ ads sent out in London by the Home Office. But I’m baffled about why they aren’t considered ‘offensive and irresponsible’ – just ‘misleading’.

London is one of the most diverse and vibrant cities on the planet – something that anyone who lives here will tell you is one of the best things about it.

And of course illegal immigration isn’t good – but this is completely the wrong way to go about dealing with it.

Anyone with an ounce of sense can see these ads would only give nutters like the BNP more fodder, fuel tensions in local communities, and put the fear of god into immigrants – including some who are possibly fleeing horrors in their own country. How is any of that helpful?

But also, from a marketing perspective, since when was this type of manipulative messaging considered effective? Did the person who came up with the concept give thought to their audience and the situations some of them might be in? Or think about the wider repercussions of this sort of scaremongering? Did they even think at all?

Of course, this isn’t the only marketing blunder the Home Office has made of late – check out these posters in their Glasgow and Hounslow immigration reporting centres. They include uber-helpful messages like ‘The plane can take you home. We can book the tickets’. Fantastic stuff, isn’t it?

I’m glad that the ‘Go home’ posters have got the boot and won’t be rolled out to the rest of the UK. But it still worries me that someone even came up with the campaign, let alone signed it off. Sort it out Ms May.