February 3, 2008
Guerrilla Marketing Painted With Poor Taste
DKNY is usurping a grassroots campaign to memorialize cyclists killed in New York City's traffic, with a guerrilla marketing campaign to push their product. Above is a picture of several orange-painted DKNY bikes, first widely noted at BikeBlog.
DKNY, Donna Karan's more mid-priced clothing line, is behind the campaign. Its web site features ridiculously good looking people frolicking about lower Manhattan, sometimes on a bike and says this effort is to encourage people to explore the city by cycling (the DKNY stores have free bike maps for distribution).
However, to us, it seems like the inspiration for the solid orange color-painted bikes placed around the city are the Ghost Bike memorials located around the city. Ghost Bikes are memorials installed by the bike-advocacy group Times Up! and Visual Resistance. They are placed around NYC as memorials to cyclists who have been killed in city traffic and are painted solid white.
To this date, Ghost Bikes have remained relatively unmolested by city agencies, who recognize that they are memorials. That involves a certain level of respectful goodwill among the citizens of New York and law enforcement. The hijacking of the memorials' medium could possibly spoil that detente. In our opinion, DKNY has crossed the line from "edgy" to "despicable," by co-opting grassroot memorials to dead people as a gimmick to peddle clothes.
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It's hard being really really ridiculously good-looking!
/zoolander face
Has DKNY said for a fact that the idea was inspired by the ghost bikes, or are you making that assumption? I'd like to see that press release: "Yes, we thought mimicking memorials for people run down by automobiles would be a great idea! It's so New York, just like DKNY. Except, without the death."
better link for more information: ghost bikes.
dkny should be ashamed.
I don't understand - are the bikes chained to things? Are you able to take one and ride it? If you can ride it that would remind me of Amsterdam and not the ghost bikes, which are chained to a (meaningful) specific spot.
Also since when does the NYPD install marketing ploys around town?
...
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WTF were they thinking?
Un-believable...
I saw these today, up around the NYPL on Fifth Avenue. Whether inspired by the Ghost Bikes or not, they're tremendously ugly and bright. Major eyesore. And they don't work, either, because I didn't notice the DKNY logo. I just wondered why someone coated a couple of Ghost Bikes in safety-orange spray paint and put them outside the NYPL. I thought it was a cyclists' protest, not a marketing campaign.
my guess is that dkny didn't intentionally copy the ghost-bike project. this seems like something a guerrilla marketing agency cooked up without doing their homework-- certainly five minutes of googling (or just running the idea by anyone with a bicycle here in nyc), would have nixed the idea.
That bike is chained to a tree, which is against Parks Department regulations.
My guess is that DKNY didn't think this through and tomorrow someone is going to be someone's worst day ever. And noone will ever see these again. Either their advertising guru is totally out of touch or their advertising guru is a dick. Either way I certainly hate it and think it's stupid and offensive.
does DKNY still matter anymore?
what are they suppose to signify? Hunter orange is the "in" color?
tacky very tacky.
that is awful. what were they thinking? so offensive...
DKNY isn't even a luxury brand. It's what poor people think luxury is? I remember this girl thinking she was the shit cause she bought banana republic.
what a waste of bikes that could have gone to kids or someone who actually needs a bike.
Another reason not to buy the overpriced crap that Donna Karan peddles...
This is pretty bad. I'd just like to add my "Yuck, come on guys."
Donna Karan corporate headquarters is at 550 Seventh Avenue. Thats within 1/2 a block of Franco Scorcia's ghost bike and maybe 2 blocks from David Smith's ghostbike both installed in December 2007.
They totally knew exactly what they were ripping off, and should
1) donate a lot of bikes to a bike group
2) donate cash to the street memorial project
3) issue an apology to the families of the many cyclists killed on NYC streets
The up to date website of the ghost bike project, by the way is http://www.ghostbikes.org/new-york-city if DKNY promo wants to arrange for donation to the project, theres an email contact.
As of yesterday, liberation of these bikes was underway.
If they want good PR, they should just cut the chains and turn them into community bikes for everyone to use. The bright orange color is a good start already.
The city needs to prosecute DKNY and the ad agency that thought this up to the fullest extent of the law.
i plan on calling DKNY customer service line tomorrow to assure them i will never purchase their brand and that they should be ashamed of themselves.
1-800-231-0884
i plan on calling DKNY customer service line tomorrow to assure them i will never purchase their brand and that they should be ashamed of themselves.
1-800-231-0884
Oh please what a bunch of hippies.... instead of calling, complaining and boycotting something so frivolous use that energy to get health care, worker benefits, more schools built, call about the shrinking of civil rights, people being stopped by cops when taking legal pictures.....
Do you REALLY think they knew about the white bikes in NYC? Get a life - I bet you're the same bunch complaining about stores running their air conditioners and having doors open in summer.....
DKNY has a nice sense of irony. On their explore the city page where they mention their stores have bike maps they also mention the city's helmet giveaway and provide not one, but two, links to safe bicycling in the city.
The photo on the page?
A woman sitting on the handlebars while a guy in a suit (can't see if his gear-side pants leg is loose), pedals across a belgian block street in the Meatpacking District. Neither rider is wearing a helmet.
How do you know people that want to complain about this issue haven't been working to address the issues you list, Quenepa? Taking action on both is not mutually exclusive.
Mr Schumacher
You are absolutely correct. I sincerely apologize if I offended those that do such a civil service for the greater good of NYC and more.
I just could not believe the level of protest over something like this and it got the better of me. It won't happen again.
Quenepa
shame on donna
I kind of think they probably didn't make the connection, cuz even overzealous advertising agents would have seen that connection as a bad PR move. That said, I actually kind of like the bright orange. Notwithstanding the situation with the white protest/memorial bikes, I don't see this as any worse than other in-your-face campaigns (like HD TV screen commercials in subway and bus entrances and posters in every imaginable crevace of the subway system).
I wrote about this before Gothamist and let them know about the story. Please check out: http://www.bikeblog.blogspot.com for more information.
have none of you heard of the "yellow bike" program in portland and other cities? i'm sure that's what they were going for...
One of these bikes appeared in my neighborhood (Chelsea) on a specific street corner that is noted for a high rate of pedestrian deaths, several risky incidents involving cyclists and at least one fatal motorcycle accident. It's in very poor taste. I find it hard to believe that DKNY was totally unaware of the Ghost Bike campaign, and if they were, were their advertising execs living in a cave somewhere? If you're even marginally aware of the local news in Manhattan you've heard about them.
More here.
There is no fucking way that DKNY didn't know about the "ghost bikes."
DKNY can go DIAF.
I saw these over the weekend and was outraged beyond words (which as you all know for me is a lot). Perfect word, Dave... despicable.
I've always thought fashion was just advertising masquerading as art but this is just beyond the pale. Fuck them.
My fervent hope is that Donna Karan goes as financially bankrupt as she is morally bankrupt.
As a footnote, there's one of these bikes chained up by Blue Heron in Union Square with the DKNY shit scratched out. Nice job, someone.
"i plan on calling DKNY customer service line tomorrow to assure them i will never purchase their brand and that they should be ashamed of themselves."
I have a feeling that you're not a customer to begin with, just some douche that thinks people they care when you complain because you can dial a phone.
fuck fashion week.
Gothamist on free speech:
1. Ad showing nuns ogling naked guy = humorous advertising
if it offends some catholics, all the better, they are uptight oppressive child molestors anyway
2. Kids spraypainting private property = art
it's art, not damage to property, and who cares anyway, property owners are all rich slumlord aholes
3. Barebutt billboards in Times Square on a church building for Toto's washlet cleaning system = humorous advertising.
lighten up catholic red state prudes, it's just tongue-in-cheek(!)
4. New York Defender game with planes flying into depictions of the twin towers= fun.
not offensive or bad taste, just a game
5. DKNY puts a few ugly fluorescent orange bikes around the city= outrage
this is terrible, they must be usurping a grassroots campaign to memorialize cyclists killed in New York City's traffic
don't you people have any real problems to get worked up about?
There was one chained up (yes, chained - you couldn't take it for a spin) on 5th Ave and 42nd St. on Friday.
@ eyekantspel -- i think we've got a very consistent view of free speech. we're in favor of individual citizens speaking their mind and we're in favor of artists expressing themselves. when it comes to corporations exercising their free speech rights, we're more suspicious-- if their ads are funny, we'll laugh (if they're not, as in the case of the nuns ad, we'll point that out too). and if a corporation makes a big, public mistake, like this dkny campaign, we'll point that out.
and i think most of you people are overestimating the effectiveness of the ghost bike campaign. the local news maybe have a 5 second mention of a Ghost Bike press conference, but other than that, we're just assuming it's a well known campaign because gothamist covers it so much, and we obviously all read gothamist.
and why is everyone in advertising always referred to as "advertising execs"...'execs' at ad agencies usually do very little of the actual work on campaigns! if you're going to try to lash out at the person who did thought of this, you'd be better off saying "the young, underpaid junior writer."
This discussion has gone completely off the rails. I have one problem with these bikes, it's the fact that they are unrideable and locked up in legitimate bike parking spaces. They have a couple locked up on the bike surrounding Bryant Park, which is BS because those racks are always in use by legitimate riders.
"have none of you heard of the "yellow bike" program in portland and other cities? i'm sure that's what they were going for..." Yeah, I agree with you PrinceVince.
I'm a huge supporter of the Ghost Bike Project, but I highly doubt that the firm that did these bikes had any clue that would be compared to them. It's really outrage over nothing. Like it or not, ads cover just about every single square inch of everything (Uhh, most likely even the bike you ride has logos on every inch of it). I think people are outraged because they have an unfounded hatred of fashion for some reason. Donna Karan does an amazing amount of charity work, and has for years (I imagine she does more for charity than the entirety of Gothamist commenters in total).
I find these ad bikes way less offensive than all the crap/nonstop ads on everything you have to look at during the Superbowl. Og course it's OK to be into a bs 'sport' like football, but G-d forbid you enjoy fashion.
reading to much into it!
When something is outrageous, get outraged.
It's not one call that will make a difference to DK, its a ton of them. And Donna Karan is no saint. Her labor practices are abhorrent, and her attempts to buy her way into heaven can't cover the fact that she's desecrated a memorial... in the name of fashion, for chrissakes!
Forget customer service, call the corporate office at (212) 789-1500 and say, "Donna Karan signed a desecration." If they get a thousand or so phone calls, they might get the message.
@ Jake Dobkin -- the consistency is that it's okay to be offensive (and in the case of graffiti, criminal) as long as it's something that doesn't offend you.
Unlike some of these other ad campaigns, which are obviously aware of the potentially offensive nature of their advertising - indeed, depending on the shock value to sell their product - DKNY was almost certainly unaware of the Ghost Bikes, the bike-advocacy group Times Up! and Visual Resistance. As others have pointed out, there are a lot of city dwellers who aren't aware of these groups or ghost bikes.
Not to defend the merits of the DKNY bikes- there are a lot of problems with them from a visual/advertising and even legal standpoint- but the level of offense taken by commentators, and the conclusion that this somehow subverts the memories of their fallen cyclist colleagues, is just silly.
The same people who defend things which are intentionally offensive (anti-catholic imagery), likely offensive (bareass billboards on a building where a church is the tenant), capitalize on being offensive (the twin towers defender game), or criminal (graffiti) are now taking offense because this reminds them of the ghostbike campaign; something most people are unaware of.
The ghostbike campaign: A bicycle is painted all white and locked to a street sign near the crash site, accompanied by a small plaque in memory of the cyclist.
DKNY's campaign: a garish orange bike (a la Central Park Gates) with a dkny logo is locked to whatever for no apparent reason other than to make people look at a really ugly bike.
I agree 100% with emilydickinson, the wrong thing about this campaign is locking these things to public property or in bike racks-- especially if they aren't even rideable.
Spelling is guerrilla, please.
actually, I just saw that an earlier comment by Jake Dobkin recognizes that the dkny ad probably didn't intentionally copy the ghost-bike project. A colored bike just isn't something that would make most people think of a deceased cyclist.
Eyekantspell, I respect your opinion, I honor your outrage, but your last statement is just wrong. It was the first thing myself and many of my friends thought of when we saw those orange bikes. Maybe some people wouldn't make the connection, but would non-Catholics make the connections you spoke of, which to you and many other people are equally outrageous? And if they didn't make the connection, or feel the same outrage, you would feel obliged to educate them, correct?
We are bringing this to folks' attention now. Whether it was ignorance or intention, this campaign told me a lot more about Donna Karan than I think she was intending. I'd like to say that I can't believe she would be this immorally insensitive, but sadly, I can totally believe it.
And if they didn't make the connection, or feel the same outrage, you would feel obliged to educate them, correct?
I agree that it makes sense to make DKNY aware that some people have been offended by their ad campaign because to them it seems similar to the ghost-rider campaign.
Anyone feeling "outraged" by this campaign should take a breath and realize that the similarity of the campaigns is almost certainly NOT intentional. It would make no logical sense for DKNY to upset the consumers it is trying to attract. Orange bikes are not offensive per se.
If DKNY had ads that said "we hate cyclists and wish they were dead" that would be one thing. The fact that whatever link they have appears to be promoting cycling is another indication that whoever is freaking out about this should get some perspective. They aren't putting ads on tombstones.
No, they are mocking tombstones. Or at least memorials.
And I did not put your outrage in quotation marks, I would appreciate the same consideration.
If they didn't know, they should have known. Anyone who does ad business in the city would know the power of symbols and know that the Ghost Bikes are (sadly) all over the city as powerful symbols. They are not there to be mocked by something as frivilous as fashion.
My attitude on things like this is, if I can figure this stuff out, then someone who's getting paid to do so ought to be able to.
No, they are mocking tombstones. Or at least memorials.
And I did not put your outrage in quotation marks, I would appreciate the same consideration.
If they didn't know, they should have known. Anyone who does ad business in the city would know the power of symbols and know that the Ghost Bikes are (sadly) all over the city as powerful symbols. They are not there to be mocked by something as frivilous as fashion.
My attitude on things like this is, if I can figure this stuff out, then someone who's getting paid to do so ought to be able to.
Putting this another way, the fact that the ghost-rider campaign uses a white colored bike to honor a dead cyclist does NOT make the image of a colored bike sacred.
We in this city and on this site preach tolerance towards edible chocolate Jesus, elephant dung Virgin Mary, sexed up nuns eying a naked man (some of which is designed specifically to be offensive), but god forbid that someone use the image of a colored bicycle. It's blatantly hypocritical. And no, I'm not religious.
An orange colored bicycle is just that, and I don't appreciate the ghost-rider campaign or anyone else suggesting that the use of colored bicycles is off limits as offensive.
There are a number of reasons not to like the DKNY bike ad campaign. I don't want their colored bikes blocking my way on the street, or taking up usable bike rack space. If they've chained their bikes up in an illegal way, they should be ticketed. I also don't think using a colored bike is a particularly effective advertising strategy. However, I 100% support their use of colored bikes to sell their product and could care less about your peculiar sensitivities about it.
Getting off my soap box... I suspect that once DKNY is informed of the similarities between what they are doing and the ghost-rider campaign, which I have little doubt was never intended, they will take their ugly bikes off the street out of respect for the feelings of those who are offended by such things.
you're right Tim N., I should not have put quotations around your outrage. Doing so suggests that maybe this whole thing doesn't really have your panties in a bu