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Lincoln Goes For Bike
Messenger Street Cred Without Permission
Adrants,
May 25, 2005
This Lincoln Navigator ad on page 41 of last Sunday's New York Times
Magazine, according to bike racer, former bike messenger and Animal New
York Publisher Bucky Turco, uses bike messenger's names, without
permission, to promote the vehicle by attempting to create a
relationship between messengers and SUVs.
Turco tells us, "Not only does this Lincoln ad hijack names of
messengers who never gave permission, but just the idea that a NYC bike
messengers having anything in common with a Lincoln is so far from
reality. What is wrong with these idiots. Messengers hate cars. It's
like using vegetarians to sell furs, it don't work. Who in the hell
approved this creative?"
Bike messenger Squid, who is referred to in the ad, is a high ranking
member of the NYBMA, and often referred to as "the bike
messenger-general" never, according to Turco, OK'd the use of his name
in this ad. Turco claims this is the second time Lincoln has run this
type of creative, showing a bike messenger and then "throwing a few
messenger names in with the copy for street cred."
Despite his image also appearing in an international version of the ad,
without permission, a few months ago after declining to participate,
Squid tells us he took no legal action. This time, he promises to do so.
http://www.adrants.com/images/squid_bike_messenger_lincoln.jpg
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