Artists to TBWA Chiat Day and American Eagle: Screw You

As you'll recall, American Eagle and Ghost Beach worked with TBWA to create Artists Vs. Artists: an "edgy," campaign that asked people to take a stand on music piracy. Wink wink.

Well, this just got sent to our inbox.

Artists vs. American Eagle. An edgy campaign asking people to take a stand on shoplifting and selling out. Wink wink. Artists Vs American Eagle recreates the Ghost Beach site right down to the color palette. But instead of asking you to pick a side on piracy, they're asking you to pick a side on shoplifting from American Eagle. They even have hashtags at the read. #AGAINSTSHOPLIFTAEO and #FORSHOPLIFTAEO

BWHAHAHAHAHA.

Two things amuse me about this to no end. They're pointing out the hypocrisy of a large corporation sponsoring what is turning out to be a pro-piracy discussion, judging from the outcome of the "discussion." As of writing this, the Artists vs Artists site show just 335 "artists" as being against piracy, while 3,126 are for it.

The second thing this site does is point out TBWA Chiat Day is the agency of record for the Grammys-- an organization that is most assuredly not pro-piracy.
Oops!

As to who is behind this? Well, It says it is a a Horse And Cow experiment. But when you click on that name, you aren't redirected to a website. Instead, a window pops up that says this:

This is a parody of the highly cynical Artists vs Artists campaign running on the American Eagle Outfitters electronic billboard in Times Square, The Time Square campaign was designed by Madison Avenue Firm TBWA Chiat Day. Our campaign is intended to illustrate there are not two "reasonable" sides when it comes to the issues of exploiting artists without compensation. Just as there are not two sides to the idea of shoplifting, child labor and human trafficking. As as parody and as political speech this site if protected by the first amendment. So chill the f-ck out y'all.

So who do you hate more? Chiat Day? Or American Eagle?

For an update on this story, check out Ghost Beach's press release from our previous article.