More Client Speak: A Bona Fide Advertising Location

June 16, 2005 By David Burn

Lewis Lazare: It’s not easy trying to be cool in Chicago.
As we reported previously, Axe deodorant recently went to a lot of trouble to hire a legitimate local, but unidentified artist to create graffiti mural ads for the product at several locations around the city.
But it didn’t take long for a band of anti-corporate graffiti artists who vehemently object to graffiti art being used as advertising to lash out out at the Axe guerrilla marketing effort and paint over at least one Axe mural at 1515 N. Milwaukee. That mural in the Wicker Park neighborhood is near the Blue Line’s Damen stop that thousands of commuters use every day.
“Axe always looks for new and unique ways to reach guys 18 to 24, however we are disappointed someone would deface the mural we created in a bona fide advertising location,” said Kevin George, marketing director of deodorants for Axe parent Unilever.

Filed Under: Guerilla

About David Burn

I wrote my first ad for a local political candidate when I was 17. She went on to win her race, and I felt the power of persuasive copy for the first time. Starting in Portland in 1995, I worked my way across the country as a copywriter and eventually became a content director making media products for big packaged goods brands. I returned to Oregon in 2008, and now I focus on building brands for companies that matter, including this one.