Communications Masterminds

An advertisement video for Vodafone has irritated Egyptians by claiming credit for the ouster of the Mubarak régime. "We didn't send people to the streets, we didn't start the revolution," runs the tagline. "We only reminded Egyptians how powerful they are." Evidently our little brown brothers are becoming more Westernised all the time: they don't know anything at all until the phone company reminds them. To add insult to insult, the video features an actor who denounced the protests and is a close associate of Mubarak's family.

Vodafone has been accused of passing information to the régime about opposition activists (a charge it has both confirmed and denied), and reacted to the Egyptian uprising by imposing a communications blackout and allowing its network to be used by the régime for broadcasting propaganda. Nevertheless, the company has disassociated itself from the video with all the alacrity of a mainstream representative of the white working class disowning the British National Party: "The company does not have any connection to this video and had no prior knowledge of its production or posting on the internet," said the chief executive of Vodafone Egypt. The video was produced by JWT, an international marketing firm which Vodafone hired to "mastermind its communications strategy" (run an advertising campaign, in Oldspeak) despite JWT's apparent inability to comprehend the distinction between "not intended for public display" and "available on a public website".