Body like a billboard: "This place could be your ad"

Advertising on tattoos is a product of the "era of creativity". The more companies understand that they can promote their brand in this way, the more people want to sell the most attractive parts of their body for this. And, for example, they place ads like "I will rent the body as advertising space" on the eBay auction.

"The use of tattoos in advertising, like any other visual image, is appropriate if it corresponds to the main purpose of the advertising message," says Olga Dashevskaya, managing partner of the PR Inc./DDB Russia Group agency. "Advertising is always a visual impact, and one cannot say that that tattoos have some special properties". However, the brand manager of the Everest group of companies, Alina Zebelyan, rightly notes that in the era of creativity, "r Advertising has ceased to carry its original informative function and has turned into a race, no, not weapons, but designers, art directors and their boundless imagination."

skull billboards

Computer scientists are also people who are fond of. Companies producing their favorite technology and convenience software sometimes become so important to them that they decide to perpetuate their logos on their bodies. Photo gallery of "computer" tattoos.

People in Russia are afraid of tattoos

"The tattoo in advertising has become something like a vampire image that attracts all the attention target audience, - says the candidate of philological sciences, associate professor, head of the advertising department of the Moscow State Institute. E.R. Dashkov Mikhail Nikitin. - And the advertised (and advertising) brand itself perfume, skin care products, shaving cream or underwear potential consumer no longer remains. "Full commentary by Mikhail Nikitin.

"Advertising on tattoos brings results only in isolated cases," Zebelyan believes. "A new "trick" in the form of an advertising tattoo on the body does not cause the effect of "crowds run to stores and buy up all the stocks of your product." As a rule, this attracts attention, causes smile, but everyone is well aware that the tattoo is temporary, people are paid for it, and we ourselves are stuffed with advertising in the most sophisticated forms.In Russia, this phenomenon has not yet gained popularity, although I think not too many will risk using this method in the implementation of their marketing strategies".

The billboard man, the sandwich man, the poster man are all examples of live advertising that originated in the 19th century. It was then that the authorities of London came up with a brilliant idea: to charge a tax for advertising on city walls.

Entrepreneurial businessmen were not at a loss and began to hang ads on their compatriots.

For two hundred years, live advertising has reached unprecedented proportions, and promotional tattoos can be considered a logical development of events. The phenomenon even got a special name: skinvertising. There is also the definition of ForeheADS, or Forehead Advertising, which literally means "advertising on the forehead." Its boom came in the 2000s and was associated with the "dot-com bubble".

Jim Nelson is considered the first advertiser to sign an official tattoo placement contract. For $7,000, he adorned the back of his head with an advertisement for a hosting company, CI Host. Then it went and went: the number of those wishing to sell advertising space on their own body grew, and among the customers appeared big brands like Toyota and Air New Zealand.

Reebok forever

In 2014, Reebok Sweden launched Reebok Forever, which invited fans to get the largest tattoo in the form of the company's logo. As a result, the brand received 366 million media mentions, 7 million social media mentions and 94 real tattoos.

Big Mac or Big King?

Some people love the Big Mac so much that they immortalized its image on their body. In 2015, Burger King decided their Big King was just as good. The company invited five fans of a rival burger to Brazil for a Big King tasting, after which they were offered a tattoo upgrade. The four agreed, and master Amy James added small touches to the drawing - strips from the grill.

Not established

In an attempt to appeal to a young (heart and soul) audience, Airberlin announced an event in which members were invited to get a tattoo with an updated Airberlin logo and the slogan "not established since 1978". The main prize was a round-the-world trip. Several contenders appeared on social networks, but the company did not disclose the name of the winner, Handelsblatt said.

Thigh advertisement

The Japanese are known for their unconventional approach to advertising. The case of tattoos was no exception. Launched in the early 2010s, Absolute Territory PR offered advertisers a temporary tattoo on girls' thighs. Warner Music managed to take advantage of this opportunity to promote the album ¡Uno! Green Day bands. The project did not last long and was "blown away" along with interest in advertising tattoos.

And on this one, and on this one, I'll stuff myself "Dodo"

Marketers "Dodo Pizza" in Togliatti doubted that someone will decide on a tattoo for the sake of an eternal discount. However, Evgeny Panteleev stuffed logo for a pizza chain and received a lifetime 15 percent discount from the company.

Living "social"

The Leo Burnett agency and the anti-racist organization Le Conseil Representatif des Associations Noires draw attention to the problems of racism in France with the help of a "live billboard". As part of the action, the creators sent a man covered with tattoos with racist insults to the streets of Paris. The inscriptions were collected in the media and social networks.

Not for profit

However, money does not always become an incentive to perpetuate the brand on the body. Often people are driven by a genuine love of art/trademark or a desire to become famous. So, tattoo artist Jason George from Mumbai, India, applied about 400 logos to his skin - both global and regional. On his body you can see Samsung, Marvel, Miller, Oreo, eBay, Coca-Cola and other brands. The guy's goal is to get into the Guinness Book of Records as the person with the most branded tattoos.

An interesting type of advertising that flaunts on the human body in the form of a tattoo.
It originated back in the 90s.
Hostgator Dotcom, formerly known as Billy Gibby, decided that his own body would help him make tons of money. He invited various companies to use his skin as advertising space. Now Billy's face and body is filled with tattoos.

In principle, the practice of advertising on the human body has become quite popular in our time. Hostgator Dotcom started this type of promotion in the middle of 2000. He wanted to earn a lot of money without any problems in order to finance his boxing career and provide for his family, the man even set his sights on breaking the existing Guinness record for the largest number of corporate logos in the form of tattoos on the human body. Billy is still selling advertising space on his face.

As you already understood, Billy is a very strange person who does not fit into existing social patterns. The man is a supporter of organ donation, once he donated one of his kidneys to an unknown patient who needed urgent surgery. Billy Gibby himself justifies the choice of such an unusual profession: "I took such a step just to make sure that my children would not be homeless." To date, Hostgator Dotcom has 37 tattoos all over his body, most of them on his face. However, recently the man has had problems finding buyers. It looks like the "live ad" market is fading away, and Billy has to scour websites looking for deals.

Was it even worth it to disfigure your body like that?

Jim Nelson of Illinois agreed to turn the back of his head into a CI Host advertisement for $7,000. Nelson's contract details specifically stipulated that the hosting company's logo tattoo was not to be removed for the next 5 years. Only startups could go for such a madness, and this direction in its current form is entirely their invention - larger and more established companies would never allow themselves to be associated with such a dubious activity as branding human flesh.

Tamargo's new acquaintances are primarily interested in his tattoos, but when they try to access any of the websites in the browser, they sometimes stumble upon a 404 error. Joe's body is an advertisement for a business that no longer exists.

Joe Tamargo showing off one of the logos

One of Tamargo's tattoos mentions the SaveMartha.com website, created to help Martha Stewart. The illegal speculations of the end of 2001 became known to the authorities, and the business woman was charged with fraud with securities. Later, Martha went to prison for 5 months and safely served her sentence, but the tattoo with the slogan that is useless today remained on the skinvertizer's arm.

You should not think that Tamargo does not care at all about the fate of his customers: for example, he bought out pilldaddy.com, Domain name site of a former supplier of male potency pills, and tried to do something with it. In vain. On the other hand, Joe is not going to remove tattoos in the foreseeable future, but he will not add new ones, and if he does, then at least for a higher fee.

Tamargo doesn't take it easy appearance: He is often mistaken for a criminal and sometimes asked to leave because of the addresses of porn sites posted on his face and hands, but the tattoos allowed him to earn 220 thousand dollars for his family, and now the advertisement remains a proud reminder of this.

Another of the most famous skinvertizers is Caroline Smith (now Williams). In 2005, a young mother from Utah sold a spot on her forehead to GoldenPalace.com online casino for $10,000, which she needed to private school son. It is not known for how long this money was enough for her, but due to changes in US law, Golden Palace is not working today, and in some states the domain name from Caroline's forehead is blocked.

Image copyright getty Image caption Wearable ads appeared on boxers even as a sign of protest

Russian Internet users were impressed by the story of 19-year-old Yana Makarova from Perm, who sold her left buttock to advertisers for 5,000 rubles ($100).

In Peter Greenaway's film "Intimate Diary", released in 1996, the main character applied the texts of her books to the bodies of male volunteers in calligraphic handwriting.

In May 2015, a student from Perm, Yana, undertook to wear a tattoo with an advertisement for a computer game on her thigh, in connection with which she walks the streets of the city in ultra-short shorts.

In case of a cold snap, the girl has a contractual obligation to move to the gym or swimming pool and show her tattoos there.

Now the student is considering giving up the advertising space on her right buttock. "I still wear short shorts," Makarova told LifeNews.

BBC recalls the history of the issue and amazing examples of wearable advertising.

What's easy in the tropics...

In the Brazilian city of Tabani in the state of São Paulo, Edson Aparecido Borim lives, who has 49 promotional tattoos on his chest, back and arms.

Image copyright Marcos Lavezo. G1 Image caption Edson Aparecidou Bonim is ready to advertise anything, as long as on his skin

For him, it all started in 2006 with an argument with a friend in a bar.

Since then, Borim charges from 50 to 400 reais ($16.4 to $132) a month from the advertiser, depending on the size and location of the picture.

Due to the specifics of the work, a man spends almost all the time on the street half-naked.

As Borim emphasized in an interview with the BBC, if a client refuses advertising, he crosses him off the list forever.

Dotcom heyday

One of the first who went to place a permanent advertisement on his body is American Caroline Smith (now Williams), who in 2004 placed an online casino advertisement on her forehead for 10 thousand dollars.

As noted by Smith-Williams, she went to this for the sake of teaching her son in a private school.

Image copyright Marcos Lavezo.G1 Image caption Many tattoos are so expressive that it is clear even to a person who does not know local realities that they are advertising.

Phantom addresses

Many of these companies have already ceased to exist, and people are left with traces of invalid Internet addresses on their bodies.

"Don't get me wrong, it's very funny," Mark Greenlow, a businessman who sold advertising space around his neck on the Internet in 2006, told BuzzFeed. eBay auction.

Then a place on the skin of a young man went to the hosting defyinggravity.com - now defyinggravity.com.

According to Greenlaw, he needed money after the army. Now he himself oversees a small but successful Internet project.

A modern person cannot hide from advertising. It seems to remove it from the surrounding reality - the world will become discolored and silent. On the street and in the subway, at home and at work - in a day we see and hear thousands of calls to buy a product, use a service. Sometimes the desire of advertisers to be noticed takes defiant and grotesque forms, and sometimes it just frightens.

He talks about one of the most outrageous ways to convey a message to the target audience: to place it on the human body.

Live billboards

Although commercial tattooing (skinvertising) is a relatively recent trend in marketing, it is believed that it appeared in the 19th century. Rowland Hussey Macy, the founder of Macy's, a large American department store chain, a former sailor, chose a red star tattooed on his wrist as a logo. So he became the first person to wear the “print” of the brand on his body.

However, commercial tattoos became widespread only two centuries later. One of the first loud promotions using "live media" was carried out by a major American site specializing in gambling in 2001. Boxer Bernard Hopkins got a temporary tattoo with the site's address - and in this form he went to the fight, broadcast by the ESPN cable channel. This provoked a real scandal: the action was condemned by both boxing organizations and sports media, it caused a serious outcry. Naturally, the online casino immediately entered into similar contracts with other fighters.

In 2009, Air New Zealand offered volunteers, in exchange for a ticket to New Zealand (worth about $1,200), to shave their heads and apply henna to the back of their heads with the slogan "Do you want a change? Go to New Zealand!” 30 people agreed to this. The advertising campaign turned out to be loud - perhaps too ambiguous for an air carrier. Journalists dubbed its participants "cranial billboards." In an effort to mitigate the negative impact, Air New Zealand announced that shaved hair was donated to people undergoing chemotherapy.

Forever and ever

If the above amounts are not too impressive - welcome to the permanent tattoo market. To date, the most famous walking advertisement in the world is American amateur boxer Billy Gibby. The owner of 26 tattoos estimates his forehead at 20 thousand dollars, his cheek at 15 thousand, and so on. However, Gibby, who initially promised to set a world record for the number of tattoos on his body, said several years ago that he regrets that he embarked on this path: most of the sites that ordered advertising were closed long ago. So now his body is covered with a meaningless set of symbols and domain suffixes. According to the boxer, his own reflection in the mirror began to oppress him.

Similar problems are experienced by another star of promotional tattoos - Joe Tamargo. He first sold a piece of skin on his forearm in 2005, since then more than 20 drawings have been applied to his body, and most of them have long since become meaningless: advertised companies have gone bankrupt, and political slogans have lost their relevance. In addition, Tamargo causes a lot of inconvenience because of the spicy advertising of adult sites, applied directly to the face - because of it, some establishments refuse to serve him. But we note that Tamargo at least made money on this: he managed to collect over 220 thousand dollars, which makes him the highest paid "advertising medium".

It's one thing to be a celebrity, even on a small scale, and another to be ordinary people. In their case, prices drop significantly: for example, the forehead of American Carrie Smith was bought out by a gaming site in 2010 for only ten thousand dollars. It is difficult to say who guessed more. The tattoo with the web address has remained forever, although the advertiser has not been working in the US market for a long time - his domain name is blocked.

There is no specific price list. As indicated on the website of the American agency that deals with the placement of commercial tattoos, the price depends on the design and the quality of the “surface”. For example, in 2016, a 20-year-old New Zealand woman auctioned off a piece of skin measuring 9x9 centimeters on her left buttock. starting price lot was 6500 dollars.

Help Advertising

Concerning Russian market"eternal" tattoos, the prices for it are incomparably lower. An example is the advertising campaign of an online store selling power tools, which took place in 2011. The amount of remuneration for placing the logo on the body was only ten thousand rubles (the advertiser paid for the services of the tattoo parlor separately). At the same time, the permanentness of the pattern had to be confirmed by a certificate from a dermatologist. Despite tough conditions, one hundred people took part in the action.

Attempts to become a single bright star in the sky of domestic skinvertising have been made repeatedly, but none of the applicants has achieved much success. So, in 2006, St. Petersburg student Natalya decided to repeat the success of the British Alex Tew, who managed to sell a blank page on the Internet for advertising for a million dollars, but instead of pixels, she offered her own skin. However, the coveted million remained unattainable: only two thousand dollars worth of orders were received from advertisers. At the same time, as Natalya admitted, many of them were unacceptable - for example, European porn stars wished to advertise on the body of a young girl.

Domestic social networks they are full of communities, whose members are ready to act as billboards, announcing their readiness to place any advertisement at a reasonable price. Here, tattoo parlors offer their services. But there are no advertisers to be seen.

Do not disgrace

Why, despite some successful campaigns, promotional tattoos have not yet become widespread? The problem is the ambiguous and often painful reaction of people. The brand tattooed on the forehead causes rejection: it may seem that this is already too much - few trade marks dare to shock the audience by stigmatizing the human body. Thus, commercial tattoos are mostly left to fringe brands or short-lived Internet startups.

There are exceptions to this rule: an example of a well-balanced campaign is the action of the British online store FeelUnique. Marketplace announced that it would pay $150 to anyone who gets a temporary tattoo of the company's web address on their eyelid. Ten people were selected out of six thousand who responded. According to the contract, they had to wink at strangers. AT this case humor smoothed over the excessive brutality of the chosen method of promotion.