Sunday, May 27, 2007

What the Hell Were They Thinking?

SUICIDE BY COBAIN, BOOTS BY DR. MARTEN
Edgy merchandisers are forever walking the line between good and bad taste, wherever that may be at a given time for a given product, but Dr. Martens has shown itself to have no taste at all in appproving an ad campaign featuring posters showing dead rock starts wearing their boots in heaven.
The tastelessness of the ads somehow seems appropriate since just about any wardrobe can be ruined with a pair of Dr. Martens.
But the company is now all contrite and has pulled the ads showing Kurt Cobain, Joey Ramone, Joe Strummer and Sid Vicious and, for good measure, has fired Saatchi & Saatchi, the venerable British advertising firm that put it up to such sacrilege.

Relatives of the various stars also are having their say over the ads, which under British law could be produced without the approval of representatives of the dear departed.

Huffed Mickey Leigh, Ramone's brother:
"We were never asked for permission to use Joey's image or paid for the use of it. "As executor of my brother's estate, I would never have approved this ad as Joey never wore these shoes.

"And, not that my brother was terribly religious, but the fact that he was Jewish, and this ad is not exactly kosher, makes it that much more inappropriate, inconsiderate and contemptible."
Well, yes, but what if payment had been proferred?

You can view the rest of the dear departed posters here.

2 comments:

The Platypus said...

One of my favorite Joe Strummer lyrics, from White Man in Hammersmith Palais, went:

...ha you think it's funny
Turning rebellion into money

...and it's so true.

Sarge said...

It's like the uuber creepy spokescorpse ads for One Laptop Per Child featuring a sound-alike dubbing over John Lennon on a laptop screen, riffing on "Imagine" in regards to what kids can do with laptops.

They pulled the campaign as far as I know and now have a grinning african kid saying thank you for the laptop ("I can now converse with people around the world, play online games...I can't eat...but at least I can twitter my hunger pangs")