Project: Canadian Club - Your Mom Had Groupies Spreads Across the Internet
It always amazes me how far and wide things can spread across the Internet in a small amount of time. I’ve been trying to track the progress of my project through pingbacks and comments, although sometimes it’s not entirely clear how people have found me. Certainly nothing I’ve ever written has garnered as much interest before.
This is how it’s gone so far:
1. After I posted the initial entry there were some responses from the Livejournal community, where the project was also posted, and by fandom related people who probably saw the ad campaign on Trancer’s journal. This got the attention of Rebecca Tushnet , which got the attention of Laura Quilter at Derivative Work.
2. After the post was up, I decided to go looking for other critiques of the Canadian Club ad campaign. I found one on Shameless Magazine’s blog, which I commented on with a link back to my project. Shameless, in turn, posted an entry on the faux ad campaign. This drew the attention of Carmen Van Kerckhove at Racialicious, who asked if she could reprint my post.
3. My post then appeared at Racialicious, prompting two new ads. “Your Asian Wasn’t Quiet” was first posted at Resist Racism and then again at Racialicious.
4. This got the attention of a lot of people, including the f-word all the way in the UK. Awesome! Between Racialicious and The F-Word, the project has spread even further, getting mentions at Faux Real, Mental Hygiene, and Noli Irritare Leones, as well as suggestions for new ad campaigns from a number of people who find Photoshop confusing (who doesn’t?).
5. Finally, and most importantly, today I got an email from a woman at Beam Global, the company that owns Canadian Club. She wants to talk to me about the fake ads. This could be either really good or really, really bad. That’s to be determined I guess. Until I hear back from her I shall nervously eat leftover Thai food and squeak a lot.
[…] comments on the spread of the project across the Internet can be seen here posted by michelle at 6:08 pm […]
Pingback by Michelle Schwartz Chronicles » Project: Canadian Club - Your Mom Had Groupies — May 26, 2008 @ 11:35 am
Michelle, you rock!
Comment by elena — May 26, 2008 @ 5:26 pm
First of all you have done a blessed and wonderful thing. I’m showing paper copies to the non-electronically connected and they, both male and female, think it is a hoot.
2nd thing is that Canadian Club may not like it but you have got the magic word in your pocket “parody”. In the immortal words of MC Hammer, “can’t touch it (or you).”
You may never get that call if their lawyers have had a chance to think about it. Rock steady kid, you done good.
Comment by Gena — May 28, 2008 @ 7:55 pm
[…] So Michelle’s Canadian Club Adbusting Project has spread its little wings and flown throughout many unexpected places on the internet. I guess we weren’t the only ones whose danders were up over the campaign. Beyond reaching myriad other blogs across Canada, the U.S. and even the U.K., Michelle’s work even gained the attention of the Beam Global corporation itself, although we have yet to see what pans out there. And yesterday a woman writing for a magazine in Chicago interviewed Michelle about the project, so maybe we’ll draw some more attention to this project, or at least to the ad campaign itself. Can a person hope for a change? I am a cynic, but secretly I hope Beam Global will at least *think* about changing their advertising tactics. You can read about the project updates on Michelle’s blog. […]
Pingback by Starkpages Blog » Canadian Club Project: Whisky and Vans are not a good mix. — May 29, 2008 @ 10:28 am
I love that you’re going to be talking with Beam Global. AWESOME!
(Can’t wait to read about it!)
Comment by Kit Corbin — May 29, 2008 @ 10:49 am
It was a neat project - projects like this offer a fun, collaborative way to flip and subvert such negative messages. I think that he fact that it involved pictures worked well with the medium of the internet.
Comment by Bq — June 6, 2008 @ 6:59 pm
*the fact
Comment by Bq — June 6, 2008 @ 6:59 pm