goes, without a doubt, to Weatherproof. Weatherproof, a manufacturer of men's outerwear, started the New Year by putting up a giant billboard advertisement in Times Square featuring a photograph of President Obama wearing a Weatherproof coat while visiting the Great Wall of China. The photograph was lisenced to the A.P, and Weatherproof, it alleges, dotted it's legal i's and crossed it's legal t's before putting the billboard up by purchasing rights to the photo from the A.P. The White House responded to the ad by requesting it be taken down, not surprisingly, since Obama has always been vocally opposed to his image being used for commercial purposes. Weatherproof agreed to take down the billboard, but not before recieving nation-wide media coverage on the billboard, the presidential response, and- lets be honest- the coat. A spokesman for Weatherproof said they weren't implying that Obama endorses their coat- just that he wears it. "It's just a great looking jacket on a great looking president" he was quoted as saying, in many publications which, combined, reached a huge number of people.
January 20, 2010
Fashion Merchandising award of the month...
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4 comments:
Fashion & politics!
together!
Nuts. Wouldn't they have to get his permission? Image rights, etc.? So weird.
well, their argument is that technically they just had to get the rights to the image, which they did, from the A.P. Though the point here is more that they knew the White House would ask for it to be taken down as soon as it was aware, causing a national media blitz that would help them sell shit. The more the White House wanted to push the issue, legally, the more the offending party (Weatherproof) would benefit from the media coverage, proliferation of it's brand name, the image of the Prez wearing the coat, etcetera. That's why they get the fashion merchandising award. They would win, either way. Plus they got a week or so of having the billboard up in Times Square before it was even on the WH radar. so much bang for the sneakybastards buck.
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