The director of the area Jan-Bert Vroege is angry with the sports brand Nike for their advertisements on several railway bridges in Amsterdam. Last weekend the marathon was run in Amsterdam, so the timing of the action was no surprise. Early: “If we don’t intervene now, the whole city will be covered with these slogans.”
Meter-long advertising slogans have appeared on various railway bridges in Amsterdam, including the text ‘Hate the first kilometre, love the last’, next to the Nike logo. Vroege expressed his dissatisfaction on X: “A large commercial shoe manufacturer illegally imports our bridges,” he wrote. Nike is suspected of being involved in the illegal advertising and expects them to pay the cleanup costs.
His message on X:
In the Netherlands it is forbidden to advertise in public places without permission. This also applies to graffiti or paint. “A permit can be applied for, but it’s often denied,” says Paul Rosenberg of the Environmental Quality Commission, which oversees public space in our capital.
In some cases, non-commercial works of art are accepted. This usually happens when local residents respond positively to it.
It remains unclear whether Nike will pay the charges. The city has not yet contacted the company. RTL Nieuws also contacted the fashion brand, but did not receive a response (yet). But the advertising has now had an effect. They were installed before the start of the Amsterdam marathon and one of the railway bridges was only a few hundred meters off the track.
‘We want to send a signal’
“But it’s hard to prove, because you have to catch the person who put it in red-handed,” says Vroege. In principle, the client is not responsible, only the person who painted it.
Nevertheless, the city is investigating whether Nike can be fined. “We are waiting for their answer, but they will say without a doubt that they didn’t do it themselves,” said Vroege. “But if we don’t intervene now, the town will be full of these slogans. So we want to send a signal to the commercial sector.”
© Reenike Gündüz – YanikThese phrases are almost ad free. But what does Nike really save with this promotion? For comparison: a billboard on the highway costs an average of 2,500 euros per month, and just outside the center of Amsterdam you pay around 3,500 euros per month.
The cleaning costs can reach 900 euros, which means that Nike would spend much less on these unauthorized ads if they were responsible for this. But it remains to be seen whether Nike will take responsibility for the slogans and cover the cleaning costs.
2024-10-24 13:41:00
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