Urban Smear
Originally posted 2006-01-03 12:39:59. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
We’ve blogged on graffiti before. Wordsmith to the stars Jane Genova reports on a little commercial free speech applied a bit too freely — as in, on other people’s walls:
Seems Sony contracted with local graffiti artists to plaster urban space in seven cities with caricatures of children playing with video toys. The ads don’t carry any product names or the Sony brand name. The strategy was to simulate street art to deliver a commercial message about the fun of video products.
What Sony might have considered edgy and out there the city of Philadelphia as well as anti-graffiti organizations, for instance, considered out of line and against the law. Sony had not applied for the mandatory licensing and zone approval. Unofficially signs are being defaced and there could be official fines and other legal action. In New York, street folks have covered over the Sony “ad” with stickers saying “Corporate vandals not welcome.”
What the heck, they’ve been vandalizing the music industry for this long, anyway — what’s a few placards at this point?
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