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.
