Apparently, Nike has taken, without permission, the 1984 album design of Dischord Records artist Minor Threat and turned it into a skateboarding poster for the company's "Major Threat" East Coast Tour. When asked by Pitchfork Media if Nike had obtained permission to mirror the art, Dischord Records said, "No, they stole it and we're not happy about it. Nike is a giant corporation which is attempting to manipulate the alternative skate culture to create an even wider demand for their already ubiquitous brand. Nike represents just about the antithesis of what Dischord stands for and it makes me sick to my stomach to think they are using this explicit imagery to fool kids into thinking that the general ethos of this label, and Minor Threat in particular, can somehow be linked to Nike's mission. It's disgusting."
On behalf of the A&E Network, ElectricArtists has launched, INKEDblog, a weblog covering the topic of tattoos. It is ElectricArtists' second branded weblog following their work for Svedka Vodka's Garden of Sweden blog. Each week, INKEDblog will showcase INKED on A&E - highlighting, stories, articles, information and content related to the show prior to the series' premiere on July 20th.
It's been reported that Yahoo is testing a behavioral ad program using targeting technology from Revenue Science which places Yahoo text ads on pages based on user behavior. Two pilot sites, dogster.com and catster.com are running the tests. A third site, photo sharing site tinypic.com, though un-announced, also appears to be part of the program based on a peak at the site's source code. Intriguingly, while many of the pictures on the site are garden variety, a sizable handful fall into the porn category. We're talking soft here. Nothing horrific. Just basic nudity.
A tipster wonders what's going on writing, "There is little relevant context in porn, but behavioral can give them the ability to target ads based on past behavior. Interesting question would be whether they are tracking and retaining the users surfing on the porn for future targeting on other websites."
TinyPic clearly states no nudity or offensive pictures are allowed but, obviously, a few got through. Likely, they will be quickly removed.
With record attendance, the San Francisco show was a hit and received many positive comments from attendees. Now, it's time to gear up for the Chicago Show July 11 and 12. Keynotes for the Chicago show include Garage Technology Ventures Managing Director Guy Kawasaki, P & G Manager of Innovation, Consumption Control Ted McConnell, Chrysler VP Jeff Bell, E-Loan CMO Catherine Muriel and Kimpton Hotels Sale & Marketing SVP Steve Pinetti. Get all the details at the AD:TECH website.
Revenue.net will, again, sponsor WiFi access providing attendees with free Internet access at the show. Visit their booth to get access codes.
We've also been told Tribal Fusion will host the "big" party Monday night.
 I...Wanna Be According to nightlife czar Bucky Turco, it's best to stick to proven promotional tactics rather than yield to the pressures of political correctness. At the Marc Ecko charity event for Breast Cancer Turco attended last night, servers where sampling Evian and Floot, a new, wine/champagne-in-a-can drink. Per usual, most of the servers were attractive females except for one Floot server. Noticing this, Turco commented, "Women dolled up and serving is cute and cool and acceptable. But the minute you dress a dude up you're headed for disaster."
Turco said the women all looked fine but said, "The guy, all dressed in yellow with a gold belt look like he just died and descended back from Gay Hipster Heaven. The accessories especially did him in: orange flip flops and those Williamsburg-ish sunglasses." Apparently, the event, which was a benefit for breast cancer ended up looking like a Chip n' Dales club whenever the Floot guy was nearby.
Se more photos from the event here.
An ad, which ran earlier this month in Japan for cosmetics company Mandom, had a Chimpanzee with an afro wig/dreadlocks affixed to its head imitating a few black people as they wiped sweat from their brows with a Mandom facial wipe. Of course, the ad generated complaints and Mandom issued an apology but this article examines the very different viewpoint Japan, as well as Germany, has regarding minority races. It's not pretty.
With contextual advertising everywhere, even in RSS feeds, one has to wonder when an advertiser will get sick of bad associations and simply go back to good old demographic, phychographic, human-controlled targeting. Not that Sony has a problem with drug rehab but these contextual associations do get fairly humorous at times.
On Monday, a billboard on Sepulveda Boulevard, south of Santa Monica, CA went up that included an image of a shadowy Uncle Sam figure controlling a newscaster puppet. The accompanying headline reads, "Shox News Channel: We Distort, You Comply." The billboard, created by political artist Karen Fiorito, is said to parody monopolistic corporate media and is the second billboard created by the outspoken Fiorito who says her work is designed to explore the relationship between politics, propaganda and art.
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Five years ago, Ridley Scott's production company, RSA Films, founded The Fireflies Ride to raise money for Leukemia research organization Lueka. Five years later, it's still going strong.
The Fireflies Ride is a rugged, nine day ride through the mountains from Geneva to Cannes. This year a "rider," actor-writer Theodore Bouloukos, has launched his own website that tracks his progress with a new video clip every day. It's a pro bono project by the now corporation.
The viral website and all content was created by HBXIV, the now corporation's viral unit. the now corporation is also co-sponsoring a party to welcome the riders when they arrive in Cannes. Though the ride takes nine days for the Fireflies to complete, no one knows just how long Theo will ride. You'll know why after you see his physique.
With two funny movies, Martini is promoting an inflatable pool on the shape of their logo, BlogFonk reports. The campaign was created by Doorn $ Roos Advertising and is part of a larger Martini Mansion promotion.
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