Eliot Van Buskirk over at Wired magazine’s Listening Post blog has the hilarious tale of an advertising email gone astray: the missive in question came from one Adam Kluger of The Kluger Agency (or, according to Mr. Kluger, from an over-eager minion of his), and it offered a company called Double Happiness Jeans the opportunity to have their product name appear in the lyrics of a popular song, sung by “one of the world’s most famous recording artists.” Two problems with that: Double Happiness Jeans is an art project involving the virtual world Second Life, and — last but not least — it is also part of something called The Anti-Advertising Agency, run by Jeff Crouse and Steve Lambert.
Not the most auspicious person to contact for something that even relatively pro-advertising music fans might see as an abomination, but Mr. Kluger sees as “the opportunity of a lifetime.” Rather than dismiss his email, however, Crouse responds enthusiastically:
On a personal note, I’d like to say that I simply don’t understand all of the fuss about product placement. I say: if you can deliver me a catchy tune while simultaneously informing me about a new hot Axe body spray fragrance, well you have just saved me precious time! Words are words, whether they are about axe body spray or “hitting me one more timeâ€.
Then things got even weirder: after commenters posted some unflattering remarks about Mr. Kruger on the Anti-Advertising blog, he contacted Crouse and Lambert both by phone and via e-mail to ask that they remove the comments — and has now threatened to sue, claiming that “$5500 is what it’s going to cost me to have an attorney stick you with a $150,000 judgment for the next 20 years.” Kruger says he plans to go after the Anti-Advertising Agency as well as the gallery where Lambert sells his art. As Lambert notes in a comment on the AAA blog, however, according to the most recent rulings in the U.S., blogs are protected from legal action related to comments.
Mr. Kruger, meanwhile, seems like another person who might benefit from reading about the Barbra Streisand Effect.