Artful Dodger ads are causing a stir

George Osborne has been splashed across the papers the past couple of days in his new starring role as the Artful Dodger. Together, we came up with the idea for a cheeky ad to get people talking about tax dodging and we’ve done just that. We’re exposing the scandal of tax dodging and making sure we all know the truth about how much we really lose each year to super-rich tax cheats. We always said we wanted to get everyone talking: politicians, journalists and members of the public.

Photograph by 38 Degrees

The past few days have been really exciting: the phones in the 38 Degrees office haven’t stopped ringing. On Tuesday morning, you might have seen David on Sky News or BBC News talking about our ads. In fact our ads put a government minister right on the spot in a Sky News interview. Our advert was held up to challenge them directly with the presenter asking “why are you fiddling about with VAT when tax dodging costs us £120 billion?”

Together, we’ve pushed the issue of tax dodging up the agenda and the media and blog coverage over the past few days proves it. Here are some of the highlights:

Daily Mirror: “George Osborne branded the Artful Dodger”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/01/05/george-osborne-branded-the-artful-dodger-115875-22826906/

Independent: “New media give popular protest a fresh voice”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/new-media-give-popular-protest-a-fresh-voice-2176107.html

Guardian Politics Live Blog: 12.12pm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2011/jan/04/politics-live-blog

Irish Times: “Billboard campaign to target avoiders and evaders of tax”
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2011/0105/1224286779740.html

Media Week: “Newspapers spike ad targeting Osborne’s tax record”
http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/rss/1047846/Newspapers-spike-ad-targeting-Osbornes-tax-record/

Left Foot Forward: “Mail and Telegraph pull anti-tax-dodger ads”
http://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/01/mail-and-telegraph-pull-anti-tax-dodging-ads

If you spot any interesting blog posts or articles post them in the comments below so that we can all read them.