The smartest thing a brothel could probably do is campaign against itself.

Yesterday I found out I live in the same suburb as Simple and Loveable ’s Nat. As she reported, Mt Vic residents received a letter from the banana-republic-styled “Mt Victoria Resident’s Association about Brothels in Mt Victoria”. It was a simple petition/submission letter asking you, as a resident, to let the council know you don’t want brothels in our suburb.

I really don’t know if I could care less. Moral panic is boring and generally turns me off. If a brothel respects the regulations those business have to follow… then the law says it’s a completely legal enterprise.

It’s an interesting contrast with Mt Vic’s recreational drug users, from the social dope smokers to the drum’n'bass munters. While some of these are probably next in line for legalisation (once Jim ‘need to protect you from yourself’ Anderton departs) and tolerated like they already are legalised… the law does quite plainly state… they are illegal.

These concerned residents and other moral outrage activists never seem to learn from each other that the very thing they crusade against is what they end up helping the most.

I remember when the “Society for Promotion of Community Standards” protested against Baise-Moi being screened in NZ. Essentially all it did was bring attention and coverage to the film. If they wanted to stop people from watching then they suffered an excellent failure. Their rampant attention grabbing probably increased the film’s patronage in NZ by a factor of 100.

Which makes me think: if I was a brothel, the cheapest most effective way to promote myself would be… to campaign against myself. It would be brilliantly effective at grabbing attention compared to the newspaper ad examples included in the petition, has amazing stickiness, word-of-mouth appeal, efficient (read: cheap).

These guys have just advertised “convenient” brothel services to Mt Vic’s 5000+ residents for the price of a ream of A4 paper. Well done.

It has all the makings of a brilliant guerrilla marketing campaign. Remember, you read it here first.