Shell Oil Co. has learned the hard way how effective social media can be — at not only spreading your message but at distorting it. Media outlets across the country including The Daily Advertiser and, yes, The Independent, reported on what appeared to be a Shell social media campaign gone terribly wrong. Turns out, environmental group Greenpeace was behind the stunt. And it worked to perfection. The group created a website, ArcticReady.com, that appeared to be a Shell site. Then it invited readers to add their own slogans to photos of pristine wilderness and arctic wildlife bearing the legend “Let’s Go.” The Let’s Go campaign generated thousands of submissions, most of them of the high snark variety: “End Polar Bear Attacks in Our Lifetime” (for a photo depicting polar bears), “Because You Can’t Afford to Visit Pristine Wilderness Anyway,” “Birds Are Like Sponges ... For Oil!” and “Narwhales Are the Unicorns of the Ocean. We Provide the Rainbows Via Oil Slicks.” The faux campaign was launched a month ago, but Greenpeace cleverly pumped new life into it last week through Twitter using the account name “ShellsPrepared.”
There will soon be a whole lot of shakin’ going on at Benny’s Sportshack Supplement Depot, a new concept by Opelousas native Benny Nele. Located at 2002 Johnston St., the supplement shop, smoothie bar and café, featuring hot off the press paninis and wraps, plans to open in late May.
Philip deMahy Sr., a once respected New Iberia ad exec, was sentenced May 2 to spend the next two years (he faced up to 100 years) in a state penitentiary after state and federal investigators found dozens of images depicting children engaged in lewd sexual acts on his personal computer.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
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