THOUGHTBOX

Imagine the following scene. You're a chubby or overweight person trying really hard to lose that extra weight. It's hard, what with all the cheap Mickey D's or that viscerally awesome smell you can detect every time you waltz by a pizza place. It's hard to say no to your hunger and just man up and buy a salad. It's hard to see the pounds go away much slower than they accumulate. But hey, you're trying: you're on a diet ( sort of) , you drink tons of water, eat veg, go jogging for the 5 minutes you can keep it up. You decide to take the next step and go to a local gym, which is an obstacle course in itself: you need the time, you might miss out on going out with friends, you might miss that really awesome NatGeo documentary about Orang Pendek, not to mention you'll sweat your ass on the way there, as well as during and after the workout. And pretty much once you're done, you're sweaty and stinky anyway, and the realization that you'll have...

A gym in Dubai stirred up a hornet's nest of controversy on Facebook after the company, The Circuit Factory, released an ad spoofing the Auschwitz concentration camp for their facility. Yup. Here's what the company's founder had to say:  “The idea of the campaign isn’t to upset anybody. The way branding works is (listen closely to this expert) you want people talking about your business. We want them talking about us, but we don’t want people to take offence at it. He added that he used the Auschwitz image because the classes are "like a calorie concentration camp." Now before we throw stones at these people for profiting from genocide, furthermore, before we ask how these people released this ad thinking they will not stir this level of controversy - it's wise to remember, they probably did realize it's going to be that controversial. And they profited from it. Not saying I support their use of this historic event for advertising purposes here. I'm...