Geisha Galore - Great Ads at Leicester Square

Gorgeous Geishas at Leicester Square Tube Station - or should all Tube ads be banned

Coming home from work last night, I saw a great wall ad for the new film Memoirs of a Geisha (based on the bestselling book) which comes out in London in January 2006



I turned round and across the platform was an ad for Hitachi featuring a modern looking Japanese woman with part of her face in Geisha style, and although it was complete co-incidence these two ads were so close, it made for a very stunning effect.



Almost a week ago I was sent a link to a pledge site which basically said that all ads on the London Underground were rubbish and they were trying to find 350 people who would pledge £10 each and this money would be pooled to pay for an ad on the Tube which would be filled with art instead. I thought this was a laudable idea, yet wouldn't work and I said:

"Sort of a laudable idea - but you'll never get 350 people to cough up a tenner for this. People have already made the point that Viacom will get the money anyway. Also it's common knowledge that advertising revenue does help to fund the Tube to a certain extent - art doesn't!!

People may say "Oh yeah we hate ads" but in the main wouldn't want to have higher Tube fares and an even more rubbish service as a result of not having them.

But good luck with it, I won't be pledging for the above reasons but may blog it in a couple of weeks to see what the people and commuters who visit my site think"

I got my head bitten off by someone who hadn't read my comment properly and called me defeatist. I couldn't be bothered to continue the argument as I thought his reasoning was fairly lame - so I left Mr Justice to do his best instead!

However, in the meantime the person who made the pledge - Austin Plunkett - emailed me urging me to publicise their cause on my blog. So this is me doing it.

Remember that London Underground's Platform for Arts already exists, also remember that the London Underground is in part funded by advertising revenue and that the ASA (Advertising Standard Authority) exists to make sure we are not misled, harmed or offended by rubbish adverts.



I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the whole "let's pay to put up art instead of ads" debate, plus any comments you have on the Geisha ads.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Tuesday, November 29, 2005 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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