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9.19.03
Bay of Capitalist Pigs
-- OR --
Agitprop 'til Ya Drop
Macintosh employed Einstein, Picasso and Edison as beyond-the-grave brand reps. The Gap commandeered Kerouac in khakis. Coors enlisted John Wayne's image and Dirt Devil tapped footage of Fred Astaire. Even anti-tax group Club for Growth recently usurped JFK's image to promote Bush's tax cuts.

It's bad enough when unwitting celebrities, artists, politicians or great thinkers are exploited posthumously. Now Atlantic City's Tropicana Casino has gone one better. In its latest ad, it's featured the visage of a living dictator who, for many Americans, symbolizes subjugation, cruelty, and even death: Fidel Castro.

According to a 9/12 report in The Jersey Journal (Castro likenesses spur Sires call for Tropicana Casino boycott), the Tropicana has included Castro in billboards for "'The Quarter,' the casino's $245 million entertainment, dining, retail and spa development project." The controversial ad creative which carries the slogan, The next revolution, has prompted NJ Assembly Speaker Albio Sires and Cuban Americans to call for a boycott of the casino and resort.

One wonders whether or not Castro actually signed off on the use of his image in pushing this den of capitalist consumerism. More important, what could have possibly convinced the Tropicana to affiliate a recreational dining and shopping center with the likeness of a freedom squelching, dissident detaining dictator like Castro? Hmmm…somebody must have lost a bet.

Let's hand it to the dolts at The Tropicana. Not only has their lack of imagination led them to co-opt Castro's identity to help establish their own brand; they latched on to the revolutionary leader of a country that's off limits to most American tourists. Not exactly the best way to promote a tourist spot. I mean, are we to spend our vacation time at this new socialist-inspired enclave or enforce sanctions against it?

As noted in the story, Tropicana spokeswoman Maureen Siman defended the pinko promo by commenting that "the casino was not trying to make a political statement" and "the dictator's likeness was used to show the project is revolutionary."

Wow! Just imagine -- a themed tourist attraction with shops, restaurants and entertainment! What'll these radical innovators think of next?

Now, according to a 9/13 Jersey Journal story, billboards for the "Cuban-themed addition" are to be "replaced with similar signs adding [a red] circle and slash on Castro's image, the wording revised to read: 'The Quarter. The Real Revolution.'"

Oh sure, that doesn't make a political statement.

Wouldn't it make more sense to nix Fidel from the ads entirely? The fact that his image appears in the ads is the main source of contention. If the billboards are actually to be replaced rather than merely altered, banishing Castro's cigar puffing portrait would better serve the advertiser's objectives as well as pacify the campaign's critics.

And don't forget: by belittling Castro's revolution, the casino may alienate the ever-lucrative pro-Castro communist demographic. You know how they flock to glitzy tourist destinations like Atlantic City.

"We'd prefer that it never happened," comments Juan Gutierrez, vice chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation in the 9/13 article, "but now that it's there and they're offering a solution, you have to be pragmatic about it."

Perhaps the Tropicana's problem lies in the ad campaign's weak message. The tagline, The next revolution, is somewhat vague and certainly could be perceived by Cubans who have managed to flee Castro's persecution as offensive or even threatening. Maybe if the Tropicana had simply adjusted the slogan to better appeal to Cuban-born Americans in the first place, the ads wouldn't have caused such a stir. A few thoughts:

  • And You Thought that Raft Ride to Miami Was Worth a Gamble....
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  • New! Special Slots For Yankee Blood Money



    No, No, No…Leave the Cleats on
    -- OR --
    Soccer Fans Get Some Real Kicks
    Women's soccer here in the US may have been dealt a discouraging blow now that the three-year-old Women's United Soccer Association has thrown in the towel. The organization placed the blame on a revenue shortfall and lack of corporate sponsors. But that doesn't seem to be a problem for women's soccer in Germany.

    As reported in an 8/29 HoustonChronicle.com brief, a women's soccer team in Teutschenthal, Germany will no longer display physical prowess through their footie skills alone. Now their new red and grey uniforms will be advertising it as well. That's right. The team has just taken on a sponsor with talents best suited for a playing ground other than the soccer field, a brothel.

    Jerseys will bare the tagline, X-Carree: Always Worth a Visit. Evidently the female footballers "have no problem with it" according to the story.

    This would never fly here in the puritanical US. Just imagine if, say, Nevada's Bunny Ranch were to sponsor a local women's soccer team! Disparate groups from across the political spectrum would come together to protest the sponsorship. The religious right would inveigh against it the way they did the Madonna and Britney Spears kiss. So-called soccer moms would express fears of their daughters becoming harlots. Adult female soccer players would align with the National Organization of Women to contend that prostitution objectifies and demeans women and therefore has no place in the world of women's sports.

    And there's no doubt the late night talk shows and morning radio zoos would have a field day with the obvious references to balls and shin guards.

    In the end, it does shed light on the cultural differences between Americans and Europeans, especially in terms of what sort of advertising they're willing to swallow. While an ad alliance like X-Carree's may only stir a chuckle or two in Germany, any type of sex-related advertiser sponsorship of something as influential and supposedly family-friendly as a sports team would be a major source of vehemence in the US. (It would probably prompt conservative House Republicans to sponsor anti-smut ad legislation, too.)

    Personally, I'd put a brothel sponsorship on par with a McDonald's or Coke sponsorship in terms of negative associations. Hey, at least safe sex at a whorehouse won't make you fat. Still, I'm not so sure any soccer team is well suited for a brothel sponsorship. After all, how do you apply Kama Sutra Cappuccino Love Oil without using your hands?



    Chain Smoking Gang
    -- OR --
    When There's No Smoke There's No Funds
    By now you've probably heard about the latest pratfall down the slippery slope of government commercialization. NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg has signed off on a contract providing Snapple exclusive rights to sell its water, juices and its chocolicious stoner favorite Yoo-hoo in vending machines on all city property including schools. According to reports, not only will Snapple fork over $106 million for the preferential treatment; the agreement calls for the iced teetotalers to help promote the city as a tourist destination.

    Although the budget saviors at Snapple may not care to admit it, the "partnership" with New York also allows the firm unchallenged access to the captive audiences proverbially chained to school desks and office cubicles.

    Holed away in what some call New York's sixth borough, Rikers Island, is a truly caged audience. Several companies already have realized the value of winning space for their products on the prison's over-cramped commissary shelves, including recent victims of Mad Mike's misjudgment, tobacco purveyors.

    Over the years, as featured in an 8/27     Wall Street Journal article (Bans on Smoking in Prison Shrink a Coveted Market by Vanessa O'Connell), they've been willing to pay to reach Rikers captives as well as prisoners across the country. But now that New York City's smoking ban and smoking bans in 17 states have gone into effect, cigarette peddlers have kicked the prison system funding habit.

    Throughout the '80s and '90s smoke ridden 'baccy bucks were filtering into big house coffers by the thousands. Internal memos and marketing documents show "that in the early 1980s, companies began focusing more intensely on what some industry executives referred to as the 'institutional market.' "

    Brown & Williamson gave five-cent discounts on Viceroy smokes as part of its "Captive Audience Prison Program" resulting in a "450% sales increase during the promotion month." Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds offered incentives and two-for-one deals. Lorillard spent around $1.4 million from 1990 through 1997 on its "Play Ball With Newport" and "Great Newport Sneaker Deal" efforts. Both awarded goodies like sporting equipment and sneakers in exchange for empty packs of Newports. (A pair of sneakers went for between 300 and 400 empty packs.)

    Ciggy sellers coughed up straight ahead cash, too. In fact, according to the story, Rikers scored more than $800,000 during the late 1990s from the magnanimous marketers at Lorillard and B&W.

    Talk about cooperation: as noted in the piece, "In the late 1990s, Lorillard sent company representatives to meet personally with jail-approved inmate-council leaders to discuss what free merchandise they would prefer." Hey, it makes sense to me. First of all, ensuring that giveaways appealed to prisoners made it that much easier for the sellers to lure the buyers. Plus, if penal system officials were so willing to blatantly leverage the eyeballs (and lungs) of their incarcerated market, the least they could do is get prisoners the stuff they wanted.

    So, why brand-bait the jailed? Special selling privileges and access to a target market that isn't going anywhere for a while makes it worthwhile. As the head of New York City's jail system Martin Horn tells it in the story, it also provides marketers an "entree to a big cultural market….Prison styles often filter out into the broader world, and to the extent that smoking is cool in prison, it will be cool on the street."

    Well, I'm not so sure I buy that logic. After all, I don't sport the prisoner-inspired, sans-belt, baggy-jeans look; nor do I find thug garb especially appealing. But I still know smoking's cool.

    Now that all that cigarette company loot is going the way of Joe Camel, who's gonna pay for the free weights, running shoes, playing cards and other diversions from slammer reality? Chances are if they aren't already, other advertisers will be willing to take over, even though they do run the risk of developing negative brand association through affiliations with convicted criminals. Remember Benetton's We, On Death Row campaign featuring portraits of actual death-row inmates? The socially conscious couturiers attracted a lawsuit as a result. And how about the fact that Starbucks has been vilified for its use of prison labor to package holiday items?

    So much for grizzled inmates under lockdown serving as cigarette brand promoters. One of the newest tobacco firms has found an alternative marketing outlet. Get this: according to a 9/15 Wall Street Journal story (Smokes Return to Runway, also by Vanessa O'Connell), designers from design team As Four smoked and conspicuously displayed packs of cigarettes as part of their New York runway show sponsorship by six-month old cigarette company, Freedom Tobacco. The brand? Legal Cigarettes. Oh the irony!


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