|
Everyone assumes that selling out is quite
straightforward, that selling your soul to the highest, most evil
corporate bidder is the easy way out.
This month we learnt that sometimes no one wants to buy your soul, even
if it is going cheap. Semper wrote to several multinationals,
including: MTV, McDonald's, Johnson & Johnson, Louis Vuitton, Nike,
Coca-Cola, Fuji Xerox, PepsiCo, Sony, News Limited, Monsanto and
Nestlé. We let these companies know that for a measly $1000 they
could sponsor an entire page in Semper. (We say measly because, when
you consider that most of these companies turn over untold billions in
profits each year, $1000 is not even pocket change.) The response was
overwhelmingly negative. Pepsi and News Limited indicated some vague
interest, but the general tone of the responses we received was along
the lines of 'thanks, but no thanks'.
The whole experience was very dispiriting indeed. The mood in the
office could only be described as funereal as we realised that the
Semper brand had no capital whatsoever in the corporate world.
As self-respecting knee-jerk lefties, we like to imagine that we are
rejecting the corporate world. Imagine the pain when we learnt that the
corporate world was, in fact, rejecting us!
Our spirits were only again lifted when we received a call saying that
Devine developers wanted to purchase the inside cover of our next
edition. This was great: the miserable bastards who tore down Festival
Hall to build a pastel-coloured future ghetto wanted to advertise in
Semper. Finally, we were sell-outs! |
