One of the banes of being a business owner is the constant vigilance needed to combat graffiti in your hood. One of the banes of being in advertising is the insensitive ideas of others in the profession that tag us all with a bad name.
I thought it was a tiger, but I guess its a sumo wrestler.
Gordy, our stalwart building manager, was removing more graffiti from the brick wall of our garden office building in Phoenix today when he tripped across this abomination stenciled onto our sidewalk by Attack Marketing.
Attack is apparently on the attack in Phoenix shellacking sidewalks outside of ad agencies to sell their guerrilla marketing services. Given our organic graffiti problem, Attack’s tagging is like throwing fuel on a raging fire.
I decided to give Attack a call.
When I pointed out to their sales guy that spray painting our sidewalks while we’re fighting our own guerrilla war on graffiti wasn’t smart marketing, he said, “Gee I didn’t know graffiti was such a big problem down there.”
“It is,” I replied, thinking they might do a bit more research on their chosen markets.
He said, “Hmm, it must be because of the nice weather.”
“No, it’s because of the multi-national, drug smuggling, cap-popping, nation-leading-kidnapping gangs,” I calmly mentioned.
Ironically, when you search “Combating Grafitti” online, what do you think is the first site that pops up? You guessed it: Phoenix.gov.
He was clueless.
Then he said, “For every one call I get like yours, I get 10 that think it’s really innovative.”
“Really? Innovative? You’re killing me, here,” I chuckled.
He said, “Well, I’m just trying to put a positive spin on it.”
“The positive thing to do at this moment,” I suggested, “is to send someone over right now and clean up your three graffiti marks that grace our sidewalks.”
He said their grafitti is a spray-on chalk, so it’s “Green.” “It’ll come off in 30 days with a little water.”
Obviously, he doesn’t know that Phoenix is in the Sonoran Desert.
The problem is that now we, and the businesses and homes around us, will get tagged a dozen times by the worthless gangs that think there’s a new kid on the block named, “Attack.”
Can you tell that this has left an indelible mark on me?
Yo Gordy. Sorry man, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to get out the wire brush and cleaner again.
Graffiti in general is just a bad idea. Combine it with marketing and you have a REALLY bad idea. Combine it with a chalk that doesn’t dissolve for 30 days and it’s called “Vandalism”.
Amen to that, Randy.
There are many legitimate points in this and found it quite humorous in this plight for an ad agency to spread the message of their presence.
I found the subject depicted to be confusing. The words I get, but the figure is debatable at best.
However, I have some doubt that real taggers (ones who use paint markers and Krylon) would be encouraged to tag from these odd stenciled marks on the ground. However, I don’t know … I don’t live in “phoenix” per se and don’t know the tagger scene well.
Thanks for sharing this; it should prove helpful or valuable for others who search for the “ATTACK” tagging on their premises.
~joe
Thanks for your thoughts, Joe. I suppose my rant was exacerbated by the constant money I spend in cleaning up the graffiti in our neighborhood. When I saw one of us doing it, well, that put me over the top.
Maybe Attack can pay Gordy if he wears a shirt with their logo on it while he works to clean up the graffiti. Maybe they’ll pay him time and a half and it will be a win/win?
Helluva an idea, Adam. Oh Gordy…..
These guys did the same thing outside our office. I thought it was a dinosaur.
Unimpressive, to say the least.
Yah, and wouldn’t you know it, Jon, the bangers tagged the wall directly behind the sumo graffiti two nights later. Nice marketing.
CURB – a marketing agency in London do some clever sustainable graffiti:
http://www.mindthecurb.com/