Guerrilla Radio-- Turn That Shit Up (591 hits)
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Submitted by vexx (View user info) at 2006-04-19 00:28:14 EDT
The latest story comes out of Salt Lake City, Utah and concerns one Karolyne Smith's E-Bay auction. The gambling website GoldenPalace.com paid Ms. Smith a handsome ten thousand dollars to win the auction. The item? A permanent tattoo in bold letters of the company's logo in the middle of this mother of one's forehead. And here you thought advertising had lost its edge.
This case is but a seemingly small drop in the bucket of scenarios of corporations paying willing participants to wear temporary tattoos of their corporate logo. I recently explored the website LeaseYourBody.com and learned that interested parties (mainly young people and students) can complete a free, simple registration process then simply wait for offers from affiliate companies to come in, offering rather generous compensation of $5,000 (minus a 30% off the top charge to LeaseYourBody, then another $9.99 for paperwork filing) to wear the temporary tattoo for 30 days. Unsurprisingly, corporations mainly select those interested participants it finds to be the most attractive and outgoing of the pool to participate. When trying to think of a word for this phenomena--leasing the rights of your body to an anonymous buyer with the sole promise of monetary compensation--I don't believe I was far off in coming to my conclusion: prostitution. Have corporations begun to market too aggressively to get their message out there? Does the willingness of the participants factor into it? Let's take a look at the asymptote of "new" marketing and its attempts to toe the line of ethical decency.
But first, should the shock value for these websites and mode of advertisement be really so surprising? On warm days a person can be seen distributing flyers outside of Little Stevie's Pizzeria on Boylston, dressed as a giant hotdog. My favorite T-Shirt has a Hurley logo, emblazoned brightly across the chest. If advertisers are working towards making the public human billboards, perhaps the line between tattoos and a sweater tag is finer than we thought.
Simply put, the immersion of the public in corporate advertising is nothing short of an exposure flood. If we change channels during television commercials, we still see movie posters in the subway, flyers crammed into our mailboxes, and never-ending Pop-Up ads streaming across our computer screens as we try to surf the web. Though we've mostly become accustomed to blocking it out as the norm and paying little attention, it should not require a tattooed forehead to motivate us to take an objective look at how pervasively advertisements have crept into everyday urban life, and wonder just how accountable these corporations should be for their marketing.
Though I'm a person of near libertarian principles, I believe that corporations like GoldenPalace are playing a dangerous game when it comes to the temptation of instant money. Ms. Smith supported her decision with fervor, explaining "I only live once and I'm doing it for my son. It's a small sacrifice to build a better future for [him]." Smith probably should have spent some time investigating scholarship programs or a better paying job, this is true, but many others would do much more for the gratification of an instant payday. It is her body to do with as she pleases (and if Roe V. Wade is still the determining factor, she has a legal right to) but the lines get blurred when she attends a parent/teacher meeting at this prestigious private school with a gambling website etched into her brow, or a pornographic website pays her twice as much to adorn her cheeks with logos of nude women. Similar to drug use, this lending out of the body is not a victimless crime, as those around her (son especially) must live with the consequences of Mommy Billboard. These organizations are demeaning and exploiting the plights of the down-and-out, buying dignity in the hopes of registering a few more users and move another dozen pairs of tennis shoes.
If this new trend in aggressive marketing continues, who knows how far down the slippery slope it might slide? Perhaps individual drug companies will begin arguing for a monopoly on new-born infants, paying for a year of diapers in exchange for lifetime use of Pfizer pharmaceuticals. High schools may begin sprouting up with names such as Nike Secondary School and PepsiCola High (free sodas in the vending machines, of course.) In an unsettling glimpse into a capitalist future, the novel "Nation States" by Max Berry portrays a consumerist society's dream in which citizens are bar-coded and organizations such as the NRA are publicly traded companies, services rendered to the highest bidder. Perhaps these ideas sounds a bit grim, but it is important to consider where this trend is headed.
The issue of free speech is a crucial one to consider as well. It is true that due to a creative interpretation of the 14th Amendment, after the Civil War the Corporation as a legal entity (along with former slaves) became eligible for all rights a human is afforded under the Constitution, such as the Bill of Rights and so on. This was originally done to impose a sense of accountability on the companies in the interest of protecting shareholders, though modern corporations exploit it today in a much different sense. However, there is a fundamental difference in the protection of the speech of a corporation and that of an individual. While one person may be adamantly opposed to abortion and can freely speak his views on the subject, if a large-scale corporation develops insistent means to deliver the same message by handing out Pro-Life condom coupons, the audience is on a much larger scale, and so is the impact.
The cynical reader might see this argument as an exercise in futility, claiming that such marketing is a necessary evil, and the public has no recourse to stop it. It may feel this way, but one may take into consideration the case of the Torah-observant Jews of Jerusalem, who sparked worldwide interest when beginning a fight against offensive advertisements on billboards throughout Israel during times of social unrest. After getting many calls of complaint from citizens (secular and Jewish alike) concerning "the worst kind of indecency" and "total violation of explicit codes of behavior" the Worldwide Rabbinical Committee for the Prevention of Indecent Advertising joined the cause and brought a full-scale campaign against all companies involved with the offensive advertisements. Not long after, non-Jewish interest groups such as women organizations began to jump on the bandwagon. The Committee then imposed a boycott of all food products related to the involved corporations until the billboards were taken down. Perhaps this story seems farfetched, or only plausible in a religion-oriented culture like Israel. Yet still the fact remains that The Worldwide Rabbinical Committee for the Prevention of Indecent Advertising retains its headquarters in New York, and many Jewish-American organizations were eager to fight for the cause as well.
Though the pervasiveness of advertising can reach somewhat nauseous levels, as the case of Karolyne Smith points out, it is important to remember that this guerilla marketing and media flood does not have to impede our lives or even our consumer habits. If we realize the organizations that are accountable and our reliance on visual manifestations of consumer pop-culture, perhaps we can keep the next generation's foreheads free of barcodes.
User Reviews
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2007-11-21 12:18:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by messmind (user info) at 2007-02-28 17:54:00 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by vexx (user info) at 2006-04-19 00:29:07 (#)
Ranking: -2
wtf I'm not reading all that
Submitted by ledastwins (user info) at 2006-05-01 14:06:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by Grimm (user info) at 2006-04-19 08:08:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by Bushy (user info) at 2006-04-19 07:55:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
was this a first year marketing essay? it sure as hell reads like it.
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2006-04-19 07:21:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
We already have coke. pepsi, and Nike sponsoring schools, just not naming them.
It isn't a slippery slope from tattoos for money to one year free diapers and a lifetime of brand drugs. A baby doesn't have a choice, that could actually affect your health. Getting a tattoo on your forhead has less of a stigma than starring in porn, it is just harder to hide.
Submitted by hairycoo (user info) at 2006-04-19 05:07:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-04-19 05:03:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Strangely, there are some brands I like so much I might consider tattooing them onto myself anyway. Why not be paid for it? What I wouldn't like is to be branded with a shitty product. Imagine walking around with Yugo on your forward. Do the likes of Apple 'need' this? Or can they rely on the iPod users to get a shiny silver apple emblazoned on their shoulder anyway?
+2 for RATM.
Submitted by erosion_rules (user info) at 2006-04-19 01:16:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+1 for being feckin' intuitive about this shit.
And +1 for Rage.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-04-19 01:15:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Some people'll do anything for a buck.
Submitted by vexx (user info) at 2006-04-19 00:29:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
wtf I'm not reading all that