In either an obvious attempt to gin up publicity for their new dog tag-shaped ‘MusiQ’ 512MB, US$89 MP3 player or in a display of shockingly pure ignorance and/or amazingly bad taste, BenQ is using an image of the 9/11 World Trade Center ruins, complete with fluttering pieces of paper, search lights, and animated black smoke billowing out of the smoldering remains at Ground Zero, on their Chinese web site.

Roughly translated, the text next to the boy reads, “I believe music makes hope.” Gizmodo translates it as, “”Even if the world is destroy[ed] to dust, I still believe in music.”

We believe BenQ makes disgusting advertising.

Therefore – not that there was any chance anyway – we will not buy any BenQ product and advise our 3+ million unique visitors per month to boycott BenQ as well until the image is pulled and the company publicly apologizes. To be perfectly clear: BenQ can choose to use any imagery they want, just as we can choose not to buy any products from BenQ.

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