You know that saying about there being no such thing as bad publicity? I’m not at all convinced of the verity of that claim, but I can tell you one thing that I know for absolute certain: that there IS such a thing as stupid publicity.
A few weeks ago, the Huffington Post ran one of the most ridiculous headlines I’ve ever seen in the ‘serious’ media: ‘Horse Wedding: With This Carrot I Thee Wed’. The story is so asinine that when I first spotted it in my Google alerts, I glanced, snorted derisively and with one click sent it the way of all such deserving trash. I would not have wasted another brain cell on it, if it weren’t for an email I received a week later from a colleague in the media who had either the patience or the curiosity to read the entire article. She noticed that the FEI was taking credit for having orchestrated the ‘wedding’ in the lead-up to the World Cup Final in Vegas next month. Say what?
Before taking the rip I’m about to take on the FEI for such an idiotic publicity stunt, I emailed the FEI’s media machine to make sure that Huff Post hadn’t got some wires crossed. Turns out they had their facts absolutely straight. Here is the reply I received: “The horse wedding in Las Vegas was organised by the FEI as a promotion for the Longines FEI World Cup™ Jumping and Reem Acra FEI World Cup™ Dressage Finals. This was targeted specifically at mainstream and social media in order to increase visibility of the Finals across new platforms. Equestrian media already know about the Finals and we will be having other campaigns in the countdown to Vegas which will be aimed at the specialist media.” Wow. Wow.
Let’s start with the basics here, such as the simple fact that there isn’t a shred of evidence that the horses who were ‘wed’ are even anatomically complete to perform a post-nuptial consummation. The photos in fact clearly indicate the tell tale signs that there was no stallion in attendance – no cresty neck, nary an extra- gleaming shiny coat. If there had been a fifth leg-swinging, screaming specimen in place of the placid gelding that undoubtedly turned up for the nuptials, I can bet you that the writer of the article (whose tongue I hope left his cheek severely bruised after writing such tripe) would not have cast quite such a flower-power aura over the scene. The words ‘violent’ and ‘scary’ would no doubt have replaced ‘peaceful’ and ‘loving’ in his syrupy description of the event.
If I were a non-horsey member of the ‘mainstream media’ targeted by this FEI family wedding, I’d be insulted by the assumption of my total ignorance of animal behaviour, of the fallacy of anthropomorphism, even of basic biology. I completely fail to see how a fake horse wedding (that very probably involved two geldings) of two horses staged in a tacky setting could create the slightest interest in a high performance equestrian sporting event – the most important annual equestrian sporting event of the year, no less. What does a pretend horse wedding that might appeal to eight year old girls have to do with watching the world’s top equestrians vying for all kinds of dough and a major title? If I were one of the participants at the World Cup, I’d also be insulted.
Given the fact that this ‘wedding’ seems to have been pretty much still-born as a generator of mass interest in the World Cup Finals (even an unsavory FEI endurance scandal generates more media attention), I hereby award the FEI with the equestrian equivalent of a Rotten Tomato: a Wormy Apple for dumb publicity. Dear actual WC organizers in Las Vegas: I am very much looking forward to another fantastic event, which I have no doubt you will pull off for a fourth time, despite the FEI’s lame efforts at ‘popularizing’ equestrian sports.
So that’s the wedding of today’s post. Onto the funeral.
RIP Bromont. That’s effectively what NARG has declared by taking Bromont off its top 25 list for 2014. After four years of limping along mid-pack, the organizers of Bromont’s summer show jumping circuit have managed to sufficiently unimpress the NARG judges to have fallen off the list entirely. It does manage to be last on the list of honorable mentions in which the NARG optimists state, ‘We assume a solid refurbishing plan is in place for the upcoming World Equestrian Games.’ What an awesome way to build momentum leading up to the 2018 WEG. And speaking of publicity and getting ready to host the world at the next WEG, you should take a peek at the social media blitz being launched by the Bromont crew over on Facebook. You’ll need to bone up on your French since the ‘page’ (I’m not sure a title and a ‘bing’ map link constitute an actual FB page, strictly speaking) is entirely in French.
Bromont, the clock is ticking. I’d love to be proven wrong on this, but I’m not betting any umbrella drinks on a wildly successful WEG three years from now.
