City fights back - pavement not adspace

Kirshenbaum and Bond Bamboo ads made, eons ago, maybe 92-93? Remember those?

IBM just launched a campaign for "Love peace and Linux" (how sweet) by spraying graffiti on the pavement (via Adweek), and enraging the cities of Chicago and San Francisco.

IBM are using the same startling "media" as Kirshenbaum and Bond did for Bamboo Lingerie ("From here it looks like you could use some new underwear"), to stir up some attention. And by jove did they. The windy city is fighting back - and each pavement-blob will be fined 50 USD. Apparently, the Biodegradable chalk doesn't wash off as easy as they expected. It doesn't wash off at all.

The media-space isn't new, in Kirshenbaum's case it was cleverly used to make people (and especially girls in skirts) think about what they were wearing underneath by the position of the ad.

In (rainy) Amsterdam a similar graffiti campaign was run in 98 for Marcel at Amsterdam Tattooing. The graffiti police visited Marcel several times before he demonstrated (with a bucket of plain water) that his graffiti ads indeed did wash off as soon as it rained, and thus evaded arrest. These ads read:
"At least tattoos are permanent" - unlike the ads themselves.

IBM's graffiti ads however, are simple symbols representing "love peace and linux", and they run a risk of a fine up to 500 USD if they don't come and scrub these ads away according to the public works department in San Francisco. Clayton suggests they change the look of the ads ever so slightly.....

Hat tip to
Chris and Clay on adlist.

New suggestion for IBM's graffiti ad. Made this morning by Claymore.

Marcel @ Amsterdam Tattoing ad, 1998