All in the execution?

The problem: With utility rates rising sharply in the Ukraine, many people there have simply stopped paying their utility bills.

Solution: An ad campaign. With attitude.

How much attitude? Well, the main figure used in the billboards and television ads was Joseph Stalin, “a man whom many Ukrainians blame for killing one-third of the country’s population during the famine in the 1930s,” the Associated Press notes.

In the television ad, Stalin is shown in grainy black-and-white footage being applauded by hundreds of party members as a dubbed-over voice says: “Those who don’t pay for their heat should be punished!”

Okay, okay. That’s actually too much attitude. The campaign has been called off.