Fashion Brand Pulls Offending Tiananmen Square Image From Campaign

oliver_sweeney.jpg

While we don't profess to know all the details behind the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident, an ad for men's fashion brand Oliver Sweeney has used imagery from a day during the incident in its current ad campaign which has stirred complaint. It shows a man standing in front of a tank, just as in the famous Tiananmen Square photo, dressed in Oliver Sweeney garb.

In response to complaints today, Oliver Sweeney has removed the image from its stores as well as from its website and apologized for the controversy it caused.

by Steve Hall    Mar-10-06   Click to Comment   
Topic: Brands, Campaigns   

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Comments



Comments

For more censored images of Tiananmen Square and information about it's impact on Chinese human rights - and Google's censorship practices in China - see Gaaagle.com.
http://gaaagle.com and http://gaaagle.com/blog
An artful satirical protest blog.
Joseph Jaffe :
"the launch of Gaaagle, which ultimately using Google to present a very focused search experience on things like...you know...greed, evilosity, Chinese Freedom. Good times."
http://www.jaffejuice.com/2006/02/the_gaaagle_ref.html
BL Ochman:
Gaaagle: An Artful Protest of Google Censorship
Gaaagle, "an ode to free information" is a new blog protesting Google's bow to Chinese government censorship. It's got videos, MP3s, photos and art that make the point in an artful way.
There are too many words online already."
http://www.whatsnextblog.com/archives/2006/02/post_9.asp

Posted by: owen p. on March 10, 2006 12:13 PM

Do we as marketers have no shame or originality left? Taking an image from a day such as that in 1989 and tacting it to a clothes campaign is like taking images from VDay and putting it on bubble gum and calling it nostaglisc.

Posted by: todd on March 10, 2006 3:25 PM

Did they pull the ad after pressure from human rights activists? Or from the Chinese embassy?

And what do you mean you "don't profess to know all the details"? Hundreds of people were murdered. What details do you need?

Posted by: Tim Footman on March 10, 2006 9:08 PM

This was done under pressure from communist thugs in China. Sad day for freedom. That man who stood in front of tank that day is a world historial hero artist, and he was most likely murdered later by the commies there. Sad. I protest. China, wake up!

Posted by: allen bean on March 10, 2006 10:39 PM

The ad was pulled after the company received complaints directly. I said I don't know everything because I don't. I'm not a news junkie. I forget stuff. Yea, it was a bad day but politics isn't my strong suite.

Posted by: Steve Hall on March 11, 2006 4:43 PM

china isn't communist, and we communists denounced china even prior to the Tiananmen square massacre.
by the way, the protesting students were all communists, they were protesting because they believed the chinese communist party were not acting as such. the ccp's retaliation is a clear answer on their standpoint.

Posted by: ~ on April 15, 2007 7:38 PM

china isn't communist, and we communists denounced china even prior to the Tiananmen square massacre.
by the way, the protesting students were all communists, they were protesting because they believed the chinese communist party were not acting as such. the ccp's retaliation is a clear answer on their standpoint.

Posted by: ~ on April 15, 2007 7:39 PM