The Pro-EU Remain campaign has quietly shelved an extraordinarily patronising youth outreach program designed to energise younger voters.
The cringe-worthy array of misspelled videos and posters, accompanied by bad dance music, has been inactive for weeks.
Its social media presence has been culled, while senior figures have barely mentioned it.
The main website is still encouraging viewers to register for a vote, depsite the deadline having passed.
Despite those in their late teens and early 20s being instinctively pro-European, a targeted attempt to reach them fell flat on its face.
Even pro-Remain youth were insulted by the tone of the campaign, which spawned dozens of scathing thinkpieces – then sank without a trace.
Brass-necked ad executives then claimed they had wanted that kind of reaction all along.
One told industry journal The Drum: “…people will take the piss out of it, it had to be that way rather than this race to vanilla.”
Their strategy, however, appears not to have been vindicated and has instead been replaced with silence.
Meanwhile, informal reports indicate a reasonable pro-Brexit showing among the young:
going to do a thread on why we should vote to stay in the EU because I've seen a worrying amount of young people say they're voting leave!
— marianne (@parkwaysexdrive) June 6, 2016
Interesting feature on Brexit supporters in Labour's northern heartlands, and how young voters 'aren't bothered' https://t.co/bp5AuT8fRe
— Tamara Cohen (@tamcohen) June 11, 2016
Heat Street asked the Stronger In campaign group, which bankrolled #Votin, for an explanation. We are still waiting.
