Gandhi didn’t wear Armani

A Telecom Italia ad uses the image and words of Mahatma Gandhi to shill mobile phones (via the Acorn). The ad, directed by Spike Lee, took first place in the Epica European advertising awards.

The ad reminds me of the Apple campaign which used Gandhi and his spinning wheel to sell Macs. Or, as Salon put it:

Gandhi was no pitchman

[He represented] the idea that… by renunciation you conquer. So it is bizarre to use him to sell products. When he died, all his belongings — toothbrush, Bhagavad Gita, loincloth — fit inside a couple of shoe boxes… he even tried to fight against the religious brands — his prayers each night came not just from the Hindu scriptures, but from the Gospels, from the Koran. He was assassinated by a fanatic Hindu precisely for his lack of brand loyalty… Gandhi, in other words, was the chief spokesman against the consumer mentality since Christ…

I wonder whether Gandhi’s heirs authorized the ad, or whether he’s enough of a public figure that his image is in the public domain.

Watch the ad.

Update: Here’s a previous post about Gandhi being used to sell pizza.

3 thoughts on “Gandhi didn’t wear Armani”

You can listen to the authentic Gandhi here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/audiointerviews/profilepages/gandhim1.shtml

Hmm….even as a public figure, you can have rights in your image, voice, etc. (generally called the right to publicity. ) Not protected everywhere, but still.

For example, Tom Waits and Bette Midler have both successfully sued over ads “impersonating” their voices. Vanna White sued (and won) over a robot that vaguely resembled her. (Kozinkski’s dissent was a fun read, as always.)

There is a bit of a split as to whether a right to publicity exists if you didn’t exercise it in your lifetime, but I think the majority position is that it does.

IP geek? I don’t know WHAT you’re talking about! 😉

-D

As dissapointing as it is to see Gandhi’s triumphs denigrated to pushing a product, I have to admit it refreshing to seem him pushed as one of the most influential figures of the 20th century, instead of as a butt of some joke (take for example the post on Sepia Mutiny about Gandhi as a spokesperson for pizzas).

Avi Solomon on February 2, 2005 at 3:58 pm said:

You can listen to the authentic Gandhi here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/audiointerviews/profilepages/gandhim1.shtml
deepa on February 2, 2005 at 6:19 pm said:

Hmm….even as a public figure, you can have rights in your image, voice, etc. (generally called the right to publicity. ) Not protected everywhere, but still.

For example, Tom Waits and Bette Midler have both successfully sued over ads “impersonating” their voices. Vanna White sued (and won) over a robot that vaguely resembled her. (Kozinkski’s dissent was a fun read, as always.)

There is a bit of a split as to whether a right to publicity exists if you didn’t exercise it in your lifetime, but I think the majority position is that it does.

IP geek? I don’t know WHAT you’re talking about! 😉

-D
Purwa on February 3, 2005 at 6:56 pm said:

As dissapointing as it is to see Gandhi’s triumphs denigrated to pushing a product, I have to admit it refreshing to seem him pushed as one of the most influential figures of the 20th century, instead of as a butt of some joke (take for example the post on Sepia Mutiny about Gandhi as a spokesperson for pizzas).