IBM's Dirty Ad Tactics Bother SF Officials

Olmy's Jart writes "From CNN: IBM Seems to have gotten into a bit of trouble with San Francisco city officials over some pro Linux graffiti. They claim their ad campaign is done in "bio degradable chalk" but that, even after a rain storm, "the penguins were still there ... smiling broadly." IBM Advertising Guy (wearing long-hair wig and tie-dyed Tux shirt, dirty jeans): "Hey man, relax, like, y'know? We're all just, like, self-motivated hippies here, right? Be cool, be cool, we'll clean it all up."

Comments

this is SO weird...

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see...

we have the ultimate blue chip company, IBM getting in trouble for spraying graffiti advocating a hippie-freak OS?

I'm going to bed. This day is too weird.

Re:this is SO weird...

[slashBastard]

Not to mention the fact that America's top golfer is black and the top rapper is white!
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The IBM ad guy...

[Wakko Warner]

...sounds like he'll be celebrating 4/20 Holiday.

- A.P.

--
Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?

I remember similar ad...

[Alex Belits]

...for sidewalk.com when it just appeared. No one was trying to make Bill Gates clean it though.

It's NOT "biodegradable chalk" - it's spraypaint

[bis]

... well, at least the stuff that adorns sidewalks, all over Cambridge. So anyway, one of my roommates and I went outside, to see what the stuff was really made of, and here is the story:

http://24.147.16.240/

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They did it in Chicago as well

[astrashe]

My Chicago neighborhood is covered with this graffiti as well.

Damn the fines, full speed ahead

[griffjon]

The civil penalty is $500, or community service. As long as they could get the $500 judgement per infraction... Although, I must admit, it'd be funny seeing the CMO of IBM doing community service in the Haight-Ashbury area.

(PS: I submitted this like this morning, and it was rejected-- what's up with that?)

Get a-scrubbin', Lou!

[ljavelin]

As a computer geek working in an ad agency, I must say that this one worked. Whenever you get serious people to talk about IBM paying $500 fines and community service, you win. The penguin rules the streets.

OK, I admit it. I want to see Lou Gerstner (IBM's CEO) scrubbin' the sidewalks tomorrow mornin'.

It's brilliant!

[Dwonis]

You've got to hand it to those marketroids at IBM. Think about it: if the stuff they used to make the ads would have washed away, then only San Francisco people would have seen it. Because they got themselves in minor trouble with the law (or city by-laws), it's heard all over the country via CNN. Every CNN watcher has now heard that "IBM strongly backs Linux".

This is great for Linux, and it's great for IBM. Somebody at IBM deserves a raise.
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Take it for what it is...A JOKE and an AD

[aibrahim]

Jeez, gimme a break. Companies change. IBM has. Are they 100% perfect no, but then what profit minded company can be with the /. crowd ?

Of course it is in their best interests to do so. They want to be a hardware company like always, and supporting Linux on their hardware is a way for them to point and say you can still use it when they drop driver and OS support for it. It also relaxes the need for them to develop every latest greatest thingy for their systems. Need it now, get Linux or wait.

That is WHY I think their support is very legitimate. Because I can see at least one profit oriented purpose in it.

As to applauding this, it sure is funny, and Ironic. Yes it is Ironic with a capital "I". Can you imagine the IBM of the eighties putting up graffiti anywhere, illegally or otherwise ? That is half the fun of it. If you do not remember the old IBM then you really aren't enjoying this to its fullest.

If you needed proof that _something_ at IBM has changed you just got it. Does it make up for everything they have ever done ? NO. So what ?

If we don't accept the little changes then we'll never get big ones.

Enjoy it, as seen on /.,"Its Funny Laugh."

AOL disks are a lot worse

[Ukab the Great]

If you want to talk about environmentally wasteful, you really can't get any worse than AOL. Think about all those non-bio-degradable floppies and CD-ROMs you find in your mailbox, in your magazines and, in the case of most of the Slashdot crowd, in your trashcan. Imagine how many landfills those things take up. And then there's all the resources and pollution involved in creating these things. I'd take IBM's pollution over AOL's any day.

Feh

[Greyfox]

IBM is many companies masquerading as one. Many individuals in many different business units Get It. And it seems like somewhere there are some people who actually learned from the company's mistakes with the handling of Team OS/2 (They didn't do a bad job with Team OS/2 when it gets right down to it, but they could have done a lot better.) The whole thing about being keen on open standards isn't an act. They really are keen on open standards.

On the other side of that coin, I'm sure many people in the AIX teams would rather Linux just went away. I doubt we'll ever see a Linux port of the Lotus Notes Client. There's a very uncool business unit somewhere in the company working on CPRM. IBM will exhibit a split personality as a company because it has one.

Even if the entire company can tow the same line, it takes a long time for the company to change course. The processes and beurocracy that have evolved insure that the company's not as quick on its feet as RedHat or Lokisoft can be. I started pushing platform planning to think about Linux 5 years ago and they're just now to the point where they're thinking about it.

Ultimately, the company exists to (gasp!) make money, so RMS and company will probably declare them Evil and yadda yadda yadda. If I can work for them and get paid to enhance this platform, I'm not going to bitch about it. I like programming open source. I like being able to pay rent and eat, too.

Seattle

[jackal!]

I would have been happier to read of a penguin invasion of Seattle. They probably get enough rain to not need to worry about cleanup.

J

Exactly what they want!

[inburito]

Putting up few ads in SF wouldn't result in too much results but make them illegal and, presto, you get free publicity with all the major newspapers getting interested etc.

Any publicity is good publicity to some but this can't be bad publicity in any case. It's just few harmless biodegradable graffitis that'll wash out in few weeks (or someone from ibm will wash them).

Calvin Klein (or benetton) got criticised for his provocative ads bringing him even more publicity, how is this any different?

Very clever, indeed.. It sure made an impression at slashdot.

Be glad it was linux...

[cperciva]

Just imagine the uproar this would have caused if people woke up one morning to find DAEMONS spray-painted everything.

Bullshit, absolute bullshit

[The_Messenger]

I supposed that IBM always counted on the fact that most Linux users are newbies who weren't even alive in the 80's, when they were considered more evil and monopolistic than Microsoft is today. They contribute a little bit of code, mention Linux on their website, and all of a sudden they're the good guys?

I'll tell you one thing -- anyone that applauds this can NEVER diss Microsoft for astroturfing again. IBM dresses up a guy in tie-die and a wig, paints banner-ads on the streets, and many of you are now ecstatic about the "grass roots" support IBM is showing for Linux?

But, as always, if you're dumb enough to be fooled than you deserve what's coming to you.

--

Re:Bullshit, absolute bullshit

[e_n_d_o]

IBM's investing a billion bucks in Linux...well, okay, maybe they're investing a billion bucks in their Linux strategy. If IBM becomes a leader in the Linux industry they will have to make the Linux industry quite a bit bigger in the process. I think this could be a very good thing.

Right now, pretty much anyone who is pushing Linux is a good guy to me. Anyone who helps Linux cut into Microsoft's market share by another percentage point has my vote. One more Linux (or any other *NIX) server instead of one more NT server increases the chances that my pager won't go off at 2:30am and I'll actually get a full night's sleep.

I don't really care what stupid ideas they have to use to get people to buy into it. I don't think anyone is truly going to be fooled into believing this crap except maybe the PHBs who got sold on using a desktop operating system on the server a few years back. These are the people that make the decisions and will fall for this kind of shit, so lets just pray they do.

Re:Bullshit, absolute bullshit

[7-Vodka]

HELL YEAH they *are* the good guys!!
well, some of them anyway. What you don't realise is that back when IBM were the bad guys they emploed different people.. now they are employing cool linux geeks and putting $1,000,000,000.00 into linux.

The way I see it, IBM is now made up of different groups of people and some of them are really cool. You even see evidence of confrontations between the different factions within IBM.. Look at THIS
The do have good guys there :) they even pull in the reins on their layers for god sakes... How many companies do you see doing as much as they do for opensource.. granted not the entire company is made up of good guys, but a good portion of them do seem to 'get it'.

IBM will do great things for linux. Yes, because it suits them, but I don't mind.

"just connect this to..."
BZZT.

wooohooo

[ejbst25]

Rumor has it that we IBMers are being offered $ to get these tatooed on our foreheads too.

forget SF

[SupahVee]

If they REALLY wanted to make their mark, IBM would have done it on the streets of Seattle, more specifically, Redmond.

I'm sure Bill's little head woulda just popped if someone had painted "Peace/Love/Linux" on the Microsoft moniker in front of the building. *grin*

Linux Gang

[Raster Burn]

I bet the local gangs were worried someone was taking over their turf. Actually, they were probably just really, really confused.

Java - Apache - Linux - Peace - Love - Right On

[Zeio]

Personally, I like seeing these ad campaigns. I see this refreshing billboard all over Si Valley, and the only other one that sticks in my mind is some vile Microsoft ad touting 99.999% uptime and the coveted 5 nines as if anyone knows what they are talking about.
I think that using guerilla marketing strategies such as placing graffiti on sidewalks is and excellent idea, considering the campaign fall in place with technology based on Open Source ("Free") software. So, as my logic would have it, it's nice to see free software be advertised using free techniques.
I see all sorts of graffiti lying around on sidewalks of San Francisco, particularly the Haight-Ashbury section - it's a interesting mix of pseudo-hippy crap clashing with encroaching yuppies. This IBM campaign is an intellectual break from the mindless dribble more frequently found in these places.
So instead of boring us with another set of made up numbers, IBM uses a refreshing way of reminding us what they are doing at the moment - and I like it - I feel compelled to smile at that penguin every time, even though I like BSD flavors much better because they are more coherent than Linux distributions.
I find it interesting that the big blue whose position in the industry is pretty much anchored is making strides to have a fresh face and participate in the whole 'open' movement. Strides in Apache and Java come to mind in particular, I know at my company most of Java developers us the IBM development tools. IBM also embraced the Linux kernel very early on and makes laptops that come with Caldera on them (T22).
Peace, love and Linux, right on. For once there is an ad from one of the big boys that doesn't have any lies in it.