Extreme Advertising the "Still Free" Way

Gotta love friends! One of 'em told me about the "Still Free" campaign ad, which is an interesting idea to say the least.

You'd think as far as marketing and ads go, I would have seen it all by now. After all, cutting a poster into your skin is hard-core design at its most bizarre; Stefan Sagmeister is surely the king of extreme ads, no? (Warning: if you click on the previous link you may see more of the designer than is palatable for your taste; just a head's up.)

But I have got to hand it to Marc Ecko, the guy can create a compelling campaign. With "Still Free," Marc tries to answer the question of "how important is the ability to get art out to the people? So important that I will tag Air Force One to prove it!" (That is my Cliff's notes version of the campaign's message. The preceding link is to the YouTube video, which I am embedding below. spoilers about the campaign follow the vid, so be careful; I'd suggest seeing the vid first before you continue on in the post.)



Apparently the air force even investigated this, because the plane in the ads looked spot-on. I just think that Marc should have kept the fact that this was a strategically staged campaign a secret, and waited to reveal how he did it until a later date, because the subsequent speculation and publicity would've been that much more heightened. (If you are dying to know: he bought a Boeing 747 and recreated the shell design of AF1 on one side, then staged the tagging on that plane, not the real one. I assume that if he had attempted it on the real thing, we would be hearing about his funeral services and/or jail time by now.) But then again, here I am talking about it, so perhaps the message's delivery is just fine. To read a good article discussing the supposed tagging go here.