HP pulls Gary Glitter advertisement

MAKER of expensive printer ink, HP has decided that it might have been a wee bit silly to use the music of convicted child sex pest Gary Glitter to advertise its TouchSmart computer.

True, it was a classic song, but one has to question what the advertising team were smoking when they thought the song "Do You Wanna Touch Me" penned by Glitter was a good idea.

Glitter, who was born in the carpet capital of the world, Banbury, has just got out of a Vietnamese slammer for sexually abusing two young girls. He also was previously convicted of possessing child pornography and is on Britain's sex offenders registry.

To be fair to HP, the song was sung by Joan Jett in the commercial. An invitation to touch Joan is less likely to have a double meaning than if Gary Glitter asks to touch you. Particularly if you are under the age of consent.

According to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, HP decided to halt its campaign after receiving complaints about Glitter.

Evin Daly, who runs AbuseWatch.net, complained about the link between Glitter and the computer company's new ad because he didn't think it was appropriate and because he doesn't want Glitter to profit from the royalties he would likely be paid for the use of his song in the campaign.

HP said that it didn't know that Glitter wrote the song. But then it hasn't listened to any of these new fangled beat combo artists for decades. µ

L'Inq
Wired