Adidas set up a subway car on the corner of Lafayette and Houston in Soho and invited all these graffiti artists to decorate it, so to speak. The entire circus is to promote their new line of graffiti designed sneakers.
Obviously the first thing I thought of when I saw this is the corporate appropriation and commodifying of urban subcultures. The location is particularly astute, because it's located right next to its large Adidas store which is only a block away from painfully hip destination sneaker stores such as Supreme.
That said, it's still pretty sweet to see the tagging happen in action and the creation of rather intricate artwork accomplished collaboratively in a seemingly nonchalant and improvisational manner. However, there was also a certain cognitive dissonance of seeing cops protecting this event.
I think its quantitative impact (eg. translation of graffiti artists exhibition into sneaker sales and dollar $ign$) in terms of strictly marketing is debatable, but the fact that I'm writing about it here on my blog and mentioning Adidas, which roughly 7 people will read, demonstrates that this subway graffiti event is having some impact, as specious as it may ultimately be (Is this more likely to make me buy or consider Adidas? No. Does it make me think or associate Adidas as being "cool" or "hip?" No. Why? See aforementioned remark about the corporate appropriation and commodification. But might this graffiti display influence say, less critical individuals than myself? Maybe. Tourists? Definitely.).
I took a cell phone snap shot of someone doing their thing on the subway car:
I really wish this wasn't an ad and instead the product of a child's meandering imagination. Or thinking about it another way, I guess maybe despite things like jobs, bills, relationships, and the other trappings of adulthood, the child in all of us never quite disappears. I think we can all relate to the experience of looking out the car window when we were young and letting our vivid imagination roam, quite literally conjuring a sea monster in the distance. I think the ad's message would have been more powerful if it weren't for the awkward insertion on the bottom right corner of the actual car.
