Mitsubishi Missing the Message

Mitsubishi 'street racing' ad reviewed

Mitsubishi Motors Canada's recent ad featuring their rally-inspired 2008 Lancer has created controversy in the GTA with the recent rash of highway crashes caused by street racing. This article released today gives light to the controversy and the PR move by Mitsubishi in considering to "review" the commercial after its current advertising run. However, no mention is made by the Mitsubishi Motors representative to the effect of removing elements promoting street racing in future ads. Mitsubishi Motors finds itself in the position to choose between appeasing the public outcry against its marketing strategy or alienating its youth market by downplaying the company's "racing heritage". The simple move of putting an end to the ad and any future promotion of street racing is more far-fetched than most would think. For years, Subaru and Mitsubishi battled head-to-head for pole position in the World Rally Circuit. Both companies have boasted in the past for having a proud rally heritage and both have established a reputation for importing some of the most underrated "pocket-rockets" on the car market today. The well-publicized and scrutinized release of 2001's "The Fast and the Furious" film, launched both companies into a new stratosphere in the eyes of both hardcore and casual racing enthusiasts. Both companies benefited from this, seeing their sales in the US soar. Mitsubishi Motors received such high demand for their cars that they decided to bring the brand north of the border in 2002 to steal some of the market share from rival Subaru. The difference between the two companies today? Mitsubishi promotes its vehicles through its racing history. Subaru's marketing strategy focuses on its all-wheel drive technology and the winter capabilities of such models as the Forester and Legacy. If Subaru can survive without promoting their racing models like the WRX or WRX STi to the public in their ads, Mitsubishi should be able to as well. "Under review" = Sweeping the controversy under the rug. Street racing is a problem that no company should be proud to promote and as we've seen over the years, it often claims the lives of the most undeserving and unwilling of participants in crashes. That's one aspect of the subject that no company should be proud to promote.


Jamie C
Summer Coordinator
Student Life NOW!

Highway 400 Crash involving street racers

Two Charged in Trucker's Death held in jail
Trucker hailed as hero

The story of the heroic life-sacrificing manoeuvring of David Virgoe, a truck driver involved in the Highway 400 crash Tuesday is tragic in more ways than one. First, it was a selfless sacrifice to save the lives of others. Second, and perhaps more alarming, is that the crash was initiated by two drivers who chose to race down a crowded highway for reasons only known to them. Another life lost at the hands of careless driving. Street racing is becoming an increasing problem in our communities and has moved up the list of priorities for our police forces and political leaders. What we cannot do however, is place the blame solely on youthful inexperience. My experience as a university student and the current summer coordinator for NSAIDD Day (National Students against Impaired and Distracted Driving) is that most youth (even those younger than the legal age to drive), know the dangers of careless and impaired driving. Their efforts in participating in each of the annual NSAIDD Days since 1999 confirm that the majority of youth care about the safety of others on the road. Penalizing street racers for their stupidity is one thing, but we need to remember that while there are young people out there that need to be educated on peer-pressure triggered actions (like street racing), the majority of youth are proud to be safe and responsible drivers. Let’s not paint everyone with the same brush.

Jamie Chan
Summer Coordinator,
Student Life NOW!
A division of The Student Life Education Company

Britney's Buffoonery Bothers Teens

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AP Video: Britney's new look
Britney's partying turns off fans
Bald Britney gets tattoos
Britney Spears shaves her head
Spears says partying went "too far"
In defence of the ex-Mrs. Federline
Bald-headed Spears and her party girl cohorts don't impress young fans
Feb 20, 2007 04:30 AM Lee-Anne Goodman Canadian Press
It was dubbed "the buzz cut heard 'round the world."
An allegedly drug-addled Britney Spears's decision to shave her head in full view of a horde of paparazzi on the weekend is just the latest example of disturbing behaviour from young Hollywood women seemingly bent on destroying themselves with drugs and alcohol.
According to a recent Newsweek magazine poll, 77 per cent of respondents said hard-partying celebrities like Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan have too much influence over young girls.
But in the wake of Spears's latest antics, some Canadian teens said yesterday just the opposite is true.
"When they do stuff like that they just look really lame, and like they're just doing anything for attention," Danielle McNally, 17, said as she ate lunch with her friends near Jarvis Collegiate Institute.
"It doesn't make you want to go out and party. It makes you realize how drugs and drinking can make you look really stupid and make you do really crazy and stupid things."
Until the one-time pop star shaved her head bald on Friday, Spears was most notorious for flashing her genitalia to the paparazzi while out with Hilton late last year.
The mother of two boys, one of them just 5 months old, has been in hard-core party mode in the aftermath of her separation from Kevin Federline.
She reportedly went to a rehab centre in Antigua last week at the urging of her family, spent one day there before checking out, flew back to Los Angeles, shaved her head bald at a low-rent salon in the San Fernando Valley while the paparazzi snapped away – and was out partying the next night wearing a blond wig.
Kate Bowers, 15, a Grade 10 student in Calgary, says she can't believe how young Hollywood celebrities like Spears, Lohan, Hilton and Nicole Richie are wasting their lives.
"It's just so stupid that they're spending all their money on partying all the time and that they want to get photographed doing it," Bowers said. "And it doesn't seem very fun to be out and falling all over the place really drunk and out of it. Now it's just like: `Why would I ever want to do that?"'
While Spears has certainly outshone her cohorts in the bad behaviour sweepstakes recently, Lohan is sure to give her a run for her money.
After spending a month at a walk-in rehab centre for her own drug and alcohol problems and high-profile public meltdowns, Lohan checked herself out of rehab late last week and has been spotted and photographed at clubs every night since.
Richie is going to trial for driving under the influence of marijuana and the powerful painkiller Vicodin, and could face a jail term since it's her second offence. Hilton recently pleaded no contest to a reckless driving charge amid stories of her own hard partying.
"It totally turns me off," says Lindsay Saye, 18, a Grade 12 student in east-end Toronto.
"I look at the way they behave and some of the stupid things they do, and then seeing Britney shave her head – I just find it really ridiculous. For me, anyway, it doesn't make partying seem very appealing."
Saye acknowledges, however, that there may be some misguided girls who idolize Hollywood celebrities and want to emulate their outrageous behaviour.
"I guess for the girls who want to copy them and be like them and look up to them, they might be tempted to try some of that stuff. For me, though, it's just a big turn-off."


It's good to see Students are not affected by the media and POP Stars.

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MORE PICTURES FROM NSAID DAY 2006

Well, NSAID Day has come and gone, but the spirit of National Students Against Impaired Driving lives on all year round!
We'd like to thank The Co-operators for their generous support. Without their sponsorship and commitment to this cause NSAID Day would not have been possible. The positive feedback we have received from students and organizers alike has been overwhelming... so we want more! Send us the feedback form on the back of your manual (pages 55-56) via snail mail or fax. Better yet, this link http://www.studentlifeeducation.com/downloads/Evaluation.rtf
will take you directly to the evaluation form. Just trying to make your lives easier.
Your evaluation will help us deliver a better and greater NSAID day next year. If that's not enough reason to fill out the form, we don't know what is!
You can also drop us an email at nsdlife@on.aibn.com and tell us what you did and how you'd improve the event at your school. Do you have any ideas for Hallowe'en or Christmas? We'd love to know.
The staff here at The Student Life Education Company and our wonderful sponsors, The Co-operators, look forward to hearing from you.
Carla Benvenuto
Professional Blogger

NSAIDD Day 2006

Thank you Lori De Angelis and
CH Morning Live!

Thank you very much to the co-operators for the funding and support for NSAID 2006 !!!!!!

Thank you Niagara Regional Police!

Way to go WESTLANE SS. What a great launch!!!!!!!