When I see things like this it makes me sick – President Obama Thong?
Posted Saturday, June 5, 2010 by admin
Now do you know why we must protect our President?
White House Lawyers Look to Limit Commercial Use of President
Julianna Goldman – Fri Jan 30, 4:16 pm ET
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Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) — Barack Obama’s popularity makes him a marketer’s dream. Now, the honeymoon may be over for those trying to profit from his appeal.
White House lawyers want to control the use of the president’s image, recognizing the worldwide fascination about Obama’s election, First Amendment free-speech rights and easy access to videos and photos on the Web.
“Our lawyers are working on developing a policy that will protect the presidential image while being careful not to squelch the overwhelming enthusiasm that the public has for the president,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
Obama’s calls for change and his “Yes We Can” campaign mantra are being evoked to sell assembly-required furniture in Ikea’s “Embrace Change” marketing campaign, bargain airfares during Southwest Airlines Inc.’s “Yes You Can” sale and “Yes Pecan” ice cream at Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc. shops.
“I can’t remember this ever happening to an active politician before, as a spokesperson or as an image for a brand,” said Brad Adgate, director of research for Horizon Media Inc., a New York-based advertising agency. “He’s in the highest profile of any person in the world right now.”
Riding the wave of Obama’s popularity may become a concern when advertisers use his likeness without permission to imply that Obama is endorsing a product or cause. The White House through the years has objected to commercial use of presidential faces, such as footage of President George H.W. Bush in a Cold War-themed 1989 television ad for cold medication.
Presidential Speeches
The National Education Association is running a TV ad with excerpts from a speech Obama gave on July 5, 2007, with the group’s logo behind him.
The educators’ group has previously shown remarks by Obama in Web videos and is confident the president shares a “clear and longstanding” commitment to “real change and real reform in education,” said Steve Snider, NEA’s manager of advertising and broadcast services.
The Web site for McKinstry Co., a Seattle-based mechanical contractor that Obama visited during last year’s presidential campaign, features a YouTube clip of Obama praising its work improving energy efficiency at schools and office buildings. “As president I’ll use companies like McKinstry as a model for the nation,” Obama says. McKinstry spokeswoman Genevieve Guinn said the company bought rights to the video and hasn’t gotten any White House complaints.
Obama’s face is on a full-page newspaper advertisement by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a lobbying group in Alexandria, Virginia.
Burning Coal
“We figured out how to put a man on the moon in 10 years,” the ad quotes Obama as saying last August. “You can’t tell me we can’t figure out how to burn coal that we mine right here in the United States of America and make it work.” The group also began running a TV ad in December that shows footage of Obama promoting clean-coal energy during a campaign event last September.
The clean coal lobby group told Obama representatives about the ads before the inauguration and received no signals from them that there was any discomfort,
As a record-setting crowd jammed Washington earlier this month for Obama’s inauguration, Obama’s face was featured on thousands of t-shirts, coffee mugs and calendars for sale at stores and street vendors across the capital. Obama’s official inaugural committee got into the act, too, setting up its own memorabilia store.
Malia, Sasha Dolls
Since the Obamas moved into the White House, Michelle Obama objected to the sale by Beanie Babies-maker Ty Inc. of dolls with the same names as her daughters. The company said the Sweet Sasha and Marvelous Malia dolls weren’t modeled after the first daughters.
A search for Michelle Obama’s name on Google Inc.’s Web site brings up an online ad for J. Crew Group Inc., which got free publicity when the first lady wore a J. Crew outfit on NBC’s “Tonight Show With Jay Leno” last October. “Inauguration Style: Get Looks Like Those Worn by the First Lady” the Web ad says.
Psaki wouldn’t provide details about legal options the White House counsel’s office is considering to deal with commercial use of Obama’s likeness.
The White House lawyers may have to make case-by-case determinations about the best ways to protect the presidential image without tempering enthusiasm or trampling on free-speech protections, said Jonathan Band, an intellectual property lawyer in Washington.
“It will be difficult,” Band said. “Because he is the president of the United States and there was this campaign and everyone’s proud, I think the First Amendment will be applied much more broadly with respect to people wanting to use an image of the president than it would be with
“Nancy Pelosi” we are protecting our President.
so basically you are saying he is over hyped and people want to make off of him at our exspense? k I agree
He ran his campaign like he was on American Idol. Now he wants to complain because people reacted in the same way?
I think you answered your question very well, I tend to agree.
was i supposed to read this novel
OMG! This is way too long. Don’t you know that some of us are DRINKING!!!! HELLOOOOO?
BTW: I’m wearing an Obama Thong right now.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to say, but the shameless use of his image bothers me too. People must be buying these coins, though, which is the real problem. That there’s a market out there, apparently.
I’m not completely clear on why it’s legal to market a president’s image but not that of your average citizen. I get free media publicity. Marketing media, a speech, an interview, something he gave to a company like CNN pr Washington Post willfully… but I don’t get how it’s legal to market an Obama thong, like in your example, when you couldn’t do it of a celebrity, or else you’d be sued.
I guess because there’s the assumption the White House won’t bother suing and distracting from it’s agenda.
Get over it — it doesn’t matter. Tacky companies produce tacky merchandise that tacky people buy. Twas ever thus.
Does this mean Bob the builder will sue Obama?
Yeah it makes me sick too! Anything with an Obama name or logo or a tv commercial with Obama’s appearance or speech? I definitely want to boycott any product or company using Obama for its commercials. Why do these companies come up with these strategies? America is almost half Democrats and half Republicans and Independents. If you have Obama on a product don’t you think they’ll turnoff those republicans? From now on I’m not buying anything with an obvious Obama sign or an Obama campaign look alike logo.
I want to throw a shoe at Obama when I see him!!
Its the only growth industry in the country. I’m not going to be concerned about it. This is only mildly interesting and in fact, of zero importance. ∠°)
everyone likes their privacy……
I’d better get an A in this class for extra reading.
Was there a question in here that I was supposed to answer?
When the the Pope gets his own likeness on a thong, I’m leaving the church.
This is disgusting
And I saw the Thongs from the websites. They are so bad
First of all, I really don’t see where you are asking anyone’s opinion. Looks like you have your own, but you’re about to get mine, too.
“Protect our president” my sweet ***! “Our President” is supposed to protect US, this nation.
He’s fair game. He went on his big extravagant world tour; he took big bucks and huge promos from Oprah; he spent more on his campaign than any politician in history, and he had his big old EXPENSIVE inauguration. He bought the whole package.
No president before him has been immune to public scrutiny or public use. When JFK was president, the were comedy LP’s (some of you will be too young to know what those are) made and sold by the hundreds of thousands. I know; I had one. Every woman watched what Jackie Kennedy wore and emulated it. Remember the pink pillbox hat she wore to Dallas? She RECREATED pillbox hats for women. Also, short, boxy suit jackets. I haven’t seen Obama thongs, but the very idea makes me a little ill.
Fair game.
He had better man up.
The business about the kids I don’t agree with. No children should be subjected to ANY kind of exploitation. The TY toy company are jerks.