Pointroll.com ran full-page ads in Advertising Age magazine featuring what looked like a ten-year old girl who had just beaten up several boys her age. They lay in an alley, bloodied and motionless, while she sat outside, looking smug. The product was called Tomboy.

Readers were outraged, and the next issue (May 24th 04) of Ad Age featured an apology by Pointroll CEO, Jules Garner who said that the ad “was intended not to shock but to dramatize.” But in that same issue, the ad featured the same girl outside a burned out building among a pile of papers next to a cauldron with fire. Stencilled on the cauldron were the words “metrics to burn”. Problem is, the building behind her is sill smoldering, with fire licking the windows. So is this ‘tomboy’ character an arsonist, as opposed to a boy basher? Or more importantly, what’s the point of the apology?