3M promotion hijacks Post-It Note Jaguar
Click above for high-res gallery of the Post-It Note Jaguar
You no doubt remember the infamous Post-It Note Jaguar. The practical joke played on an unsuspecting coworker turned into an internet sensation thanks to the photographic skills of Scott Ableman who published images of the stunt on Flickr under a Creative Commons license. 3M, the maker of Post-It Notes, wanted to cash in on the popularity of the Post-It Note Jaguar, and so contacted Ableman to use his pics. After a bit of negotiation, Ableman came down to the price of $2,000 for the use of his images on in-store displays for six months. Anyone who deals with professional photographers knows that two grand is a steal for a national campaign, but 3M didn't bite and instead told Ableman they could recreate the pics for around $1,000 and wouldn't use his originals unless he lowered his price to match. Ableman didn't, and 3M went ahead without him to produce the above in-store display that has been seen in stores this summer. The 3M promotion is part of the Million Uses and Counting Contest, plastering someone's car with the adhesive paper scraps being one such use. The company even made a YouTube video of how to Post-It a car, and the scene they recreated is eerily similar to the one Ableman originally photographed, except that it rings completely hollow. The original was a practical joke we watched unfold through Ableman's pics, while 3M wants us to find a million uses for wasting its product so we can buy more. The marketing folks at 3M clearly don't get the whole social media thing, otherwise they wouldn't have haggled with Ableman over just $1,000 and then proceeded to profit off his efforts. Not cool 3M, not cool. Thanks for the tip, Melanie!
Gallery: Post-It Note Jaguar
[Source: All About Content, photos by Scott Ableman | CC]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
TJ 12:37PM (9/08/2008)
I think he would have a suit here....
Had 3m just duplicated the effort without negotiations they might be ok; however, the fact they entered into negotiation with his for use of his IP, then went ahead with the IP after the negotiations failed may cross a line.
I agree, not cool on the part of 3m
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Alex 1:48PM (9/08/2008)
Oh Jesus, why does everything have to be a lawsuit with some people. I agree, not cool on 3M's part considering how much money they have but honestly he should have just taken the grand. All he did was cover a car in post-its and take pictures, drunk college kids do this kind of stuff all the time.
TJ 10:05AM (9/09/2008)
By entering into negotiations with him, 3m admitted he had a right to the IP; entering into negotiations, failing, then going ahead with it puts them into a legal bind.
Menice 1:02PM (9/08/2008)
thats it, i'm not using post-its anymore.
i'm gonna start using well, hum, that other brand?? ok then paper and tape!
oh screw it.... get my post-its out of the garbage.
they should have handled that better.
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polar 1:14PM (9/08/2008)
What's too bad is about 99.99% of the population will have no idea that 3M got the idea from someone else...
And that I am sure that post-it covered cars have been done before.
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Alex 1:56PM (9/08/2008)
Agree, I think they were being nice by offering to use and pay for his pictures in the first place rather than just do it on another car themselves. Sounds like he got greedy, if I played a joke like that on a friend and in the process inadvertently ended up making a $1000 off of it I'd be pretty happy. I'd also being willing to bet its been done already.
wonkydonkydotnet 1:50PM (9/08/2008)
Bastards.
Sue 'Em!
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wonkydonkydotnet 1:58PM (9/08/2008)
Yup, he can sue them. Sue them for what a pro would get over the time & scope of that campaign. Even based on my vague memory of the AIGA book of pricing & ethical guidelines, Scott et al should be able to take 3M to the cleaners.
It clearly says on the Flickr Page: CC, Some Rights Reserved, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, Attribution.
If I were Scott, I'd find the meanest lawyer in the whole country & get him to work on contingency just to prove a point to big corporations.
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k4ffy 2:08PM (9/08/2008)
actually i don't think he can. they didn't use his photographs, nor did they use any derivatives of them. they recreated the scene in his photographs.
for example, if you placed a bottle of milk on a green felt mat, and took a picture of it, you don't own that set up of milk and green felt mats. anyone else can take a picture of the same objects in the same orientation.
Frappe 7:17PM (9/08/2008)
@K4ffy - but this is more creative than a bottle of milk and a background. The use of color and material is obviously very similar, and IANALB it most definitely looks like a blatant violation of IP rights.
I'd like to see him sue just to see what 3M's legal team's response would be.
WS 2:16PM (9/08/2008)
Not only is it pretty lame to re-create a practical joke to save some money, wasting so much product kinda p*sses me off.
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kevjohn 2:32PM (9/08/2008)
Somebody should cover their Post-It Notes Jag display with Post-It Notes. That'll show 'em.
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Curtis 4:16PM (9/08/2008)
what a dummy! he should have taken the money haha. I don't feel sorry for him at all. Who's more greedy? The big company that offered to recognize someones efforts and make them public and pay for it all, or the individual who wanted more money? I'd say the latter was more greedy. I don't see anything wrong with what 3m did.
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Frappe 7:34PM (9/08/2008)
Luckily, copyright / intellectual property law isn't concerned with who's more greedy.
The question is whether their use of a very, very similar image was fair, and the fact that they asked him first means they clearly wanted to use his.
So, the more central questions is something like "what damages has he suffered because they copied his image almost-verbatim?"
(as an aside, I'd say $2,000 isn't particularly greedy of him for what they wanted to use his image for. Advertising is very big business.)
Lin 9:47AM (9/09/2008)
Curtis - you're seriously asking "who's more greedy"? Are you some 3M shill? Because you can't be serious. They approached *him*, not the other way around.
This wasn't just "some photo with Post-its in them". These were photos that were already well known in the community they were trying to target - this hit the Digg front page, Boing Boing, Autoblog, Yahoo Picks, and on and on. THAT's what they were paying for.
Companies pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to attempt to create viral buzz for their advertising. This was practically built into the photos already - people knew these photos, they had an association. Again, *that* is what 3M was after - *that* is what they would have been paying for.
But I think the point isn't really the amount of money or even how safe they are legally... the point is that they were dumb. This was a dumb, dumb move. They would have been better off not contacting him in the first place - the email shows they were acting in bad faith. They screwed over a fan of the brand to save a measly thousand bucks and then they turn around and try to sell themselves as all cool and creative and "with it" because they "get" social media.
3M marketing FAIL!! Epic FAIL.
Jon 4:49PM (9/08/2008)
So I take it 3M has not jumped on the environmental save-the-world bandwagon yet? I can't imagine it is very "green" to encourage such a wasteful use of paper. I sure hope they recycled all of those little papers after their little photo stunt.
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Bobby 11:15PM (9/08/2008)
The fact that 3M called up Scott is already prove that they agree that what they're doing belonged to Scott, and without his final consensus, they went ahead with it is somehow a case of outright plagiarism.
This is the same thing with BMW inviting artists to paint their cars, if I accidentally drawn something similar, i could be safe from a lawsuit, but if i called up BMW and ask if i could pay them and use their photo and if they say no! It cost $50 million, and then i hung up and went ahead recreating one exactly the same, I'm heading for lawsuit for sure.
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Bobby 11:31PM (9/08/2008)
Perhaps the $2000 could be of use for the staffs at Inphonic, the company went bankruptcy in November 2007.
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Big John 10:40AM (9/09/2008)
"...so here is some free advertising for 3M!"
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