Adidas plans to "street ad" a street art wall in Poland - meets resistance from Polish graffiti fans

This wall is the mecca of the Warsaw graffiti scene. Nearly 1.5 km of the living canvases covered with multicolored graffiti. This is a very important place for the Polish hip-hop scene. This is where the DVD was filmed and there arose an unforgettable work of graffiti artists from around the world. Once full of light, recently declined. Do not change the fact that every self-respecting grafficiarz knows this place, you had to be there and paint even one job.

The Adisucks facebook page has kicked up a bit of a mediastorm in Poland, as they object to the fact that Adidas now plans to use the free graffiti wall to showcase graffiti ads - and has already begun the process by covering half of it with black paint. A process that's been filmed by fans of the wall.

YT video is gone - was here https://www.youtube.com/v/60xzm5vOmBw

"The biggest Polish graffiti in the gallery district of Warsaw Służewiec is being destroyed by Adidas Poland. (...) By your great ad, one of the most important elements of the Polish street art disappears. Is this how you show your support for the street culture?" - this comment appeared on Adidas company's profile page, a facebook event "not to paint over the wall służewieckiej" had more than two thousand people signed up within hours. Even more - nearly 30,000 people - have signed up to the facebook group Adisucks.

Wonder how Adidas will save face here, obviously they can't just paint their planned ad on the wall anymore. That's the thing when playing with counter culture, there are fans of it who don't appreciate corporate culture playing in their playground. Remember the Sony PSP advertising? Didn't Adidas have zero tolerance against graffiti? Oh, right, that was in Australia.

Other graffitti ads in adland:
Advertising vs Street Art battle rages in New York
Street art "guerilla" campaign causes backlash from real street artists
Is non traditional media going mainstream?
Levi's 501 - ads as graffiti part two!
City fights back - pavement not adspace
Is it advertising or is it graffiti?

Adisucks Facebook
Adisucks Star Wars
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Anonymous Adgrunt's picture
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fairuse's picture

Wait one. They painted over an existing art? Yes!

The suits could have won here if they tacked up a canvas and when it was taken down it could possibly live in an art gallery. Instead their arrogant plan destroyed art and pissed people off. Great, where is plan B?

Dabitch's picture

Yep, they painted over existing art. I don't know how they're going to dig themselves out of this hole, unless they had planned on enlisting the original street artists in doing the work, and paying them a nice chunk of cash?

Dabitch's picture

"A man, trapped in the confines of a corporate poster, tries to escape and become part of the street art on the opposite wall. Although the street art is free, it is condemned and usually destroyed to make way for advertising, a risk he is willing to take to be with the stencilled girl on the other side."