Saatchi & Saatchi/London has a new print/poster campaign in the U.K. that cleverly employs four dead rock stars – Kurt Cobain, Sid Vicious, Joey Ramone and Joe Strummer – as Doc Martens endorsers. “We wanted to communicate that Dr. Martens boots are ‘made to last,’ ” explains writer Andrew Petch, “and we discovered that these idolized musicians wore them. Showing them still wearing their Docs in heaven dramatized the boots’ durability perfectly. And, as images, they feel very iconic.”
“Made to last”? But all those stars are…oh, forget it. An ad campaign that implies that heaven would let in steel-toed shoes is probably not supposed to make sense, anyway.
Tasteless [The Daily Swarm]
Hate the spirit of the idea. But I gotta say, a couple of the images are really witty: love the Joey picture and the Strummer. (The Cobain just looks like a bad Photoshop to me.) If these were on the wall of the Tate Modern, people would probably be considering them for the Turner prize.
Basically, I feel about this the way I felt about the Nike “Revolution” commercial: really, really should not exist; but points for execution.
come on, everyone knows cobain was wearing converse when he died (though I can’t recall if they were chucks or one stars).
at the time, i thought a great ad would be that shot of the body from through the window (with just the legs and shoes visable) and the tag line “In the old days, you wanted to die with your boots on…”
Conversely (get it?), I thought that the best ad for Doc Martins would be a series showing seemingly “normal” people (guy in business suit, girl dressed for the prom, mother carying baby, etc.) and the tag line “Life is a pair of Docs” (“pair of Docs” = “paradox”).
And to date myself, I thought that the Gap really missed out a long time back. Their series “So and so wore khakis” should have included some less than savory characters…”Charles Manson wore khakis”, etc.
thought that the best ad for Doc Martins would be a series showing seemingly “normal” people
True enough. I’m way too old for the boots, but I’ve worn Doc Marten shoes for 15 years as officewear. They pass for business casual without any trouble.
@Tenno: Yeah, grunge was a stain on the human psyche. Good riddance to an awful genre of music.
Although I agree, the Cobain pic looks like a pretty bad photochop. The others a pretty good though, especially the Sid one.
This makes me wanna vomit.
I’ll never buy a pair of Doc Martens as long as I live.
Dead corporate whores.
What? No image desecration for Ian Curtis? His suicide anniversary is today.
The soul left their soles when they started making their products in China instead of England, so for the company to make such tacky ads comes as no surprise.
Built to last 6 months: that’s all I got out of the pair I had, but then I made the mistake of wearing mine while actually walking around rather than just posing mournfully.
I hope DM’s next ad campaign refrains from using Doc-clad corpses in open caskets (ooops – did I just give someone an “idea”?)
@dennisobell: So true.
@Xenu: Absolutely. I managed to snag 2 pairs of “Made in the UK” Doc’s a few months back – for half off. The shoes they’re making now don’t even resemble the originals.
More importantly, yeah, I heard the frickin ‘Breed’ baseball videogame ad, and it would follow that Courtney would let em use his likeness for a few bucks too, but who authorized the Joe and Joey?
Yeah. So. Let’s pretend that heaven weren’t some made-up lala-land – with the exception of Joe Sturmmer, none of these dudes would even be there.
Joey Ramone: Jewish – no heaven
Kurt Cobain: Suicide – 7th ring of hell, no heaven
Sid Vicious: Probably Murder / Suicide – 7th ring of hell, no heaven
But whatever in the name of selling a shoe…
sickening and depressing. I guess I’m old now, the music idols of my youth have become advertising icons.
Kurt Wouldnt Wear Those Ugly Boots For The world. He Was A Great Rocker Not A Farmer. He Would Have Been Disgusted At This So Called “ad” It Sucks. You Need To Understand Someone Before You Write About The Let Alone Put Them In A Crappy “ad”
These ads stand for everything Kurt stood against! He just wanted to express himself through his music. Not through exploitave over commercialistic crap with no regard for the feelings of others! And I think the same would be said by the others if it were possible.
I don’t see how the advertising company can blatantly use a celebrities image??!! I know that certain images are in the public domain but this is just stupid!! It brings to mind the vacuum commercial with what’s his name-that dead dancer, Fred Astair. I just assumed that his family or whoever is in charge of licensing his image gave consent.
In all honest, if I were a dead celebrity & some company wanted to use my image and pay my heirs I wouldn’t give one rip!!!! Who cares!!!! How sick is the world that dead celebrities can make more money than living human beings?! Sick!
As we heard last week, Doc Martens released upon the world a new ad campaign starring some familiar faces: Kurt Cobain, Sid Vicious, Joe Strummer and Joey Ramone. The deceased musicians were depicted wearing the shoes in “heaven,” but there was no approval for using their images.
Why would anyone want to remember their favorite rockers in this manner? Doc Martens has sunk to a new low. I guess the aholes @ Saatchi believe $$$ means everything. For me, and others like me, music is everything and you do NOT fuck with Joe Strummer, Joey or Kurt (sorry Sid – different ilk but still love you). I won’t ever buy Doc Martens again. Trust that lowlifes. What ever happened to creativity? If the animals @ Saatchi who came up with this shite in their boardroom actually were fans of these artists, they might have an inkling of what being creative means. When you’re motivated solely by money, anything will be passed along as “an ad campaign”. This is just plain garbage. I hate this. To desecrate Joe Strummer in this way – oh forget it. Who am I talking to? We are in trouble if this shit gets accepted into mainstream society. F*ck all of you aholes @ Saatchi and @ Doc Marten. I hope you go out of biz due to this. And I think it’s apparent where you’re going when you DIE.
I dont think any of these people really care about the ad campaign…THEYRE DEAD!!!!
total disrespect for the dead… anyone agree??