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Look Who's Cool! Quaker City Mercantile
Look Who's Cool! Quaker City Mercantile
12/17/2002
Quaker City Mercantile (formerly known as Gyro Worldwide) shows Philly how to sell its hip side.
When it comes to promoting Philadelphia as a place to live, anti-establishment branding guru Steve Grasse doesn't think a traditional ad campaign would work.
"If you ran an ad in a magazine that said, 'Come to Philly,' no one would look at it," said Grasse, CEO of Center City ad agency Quaker City Mercantile.
"Whereas if I read in Spin magazine about all these cool artists and what they were doing in Philly, or maybe I read about the Space 1026 artists' collective down in Chinatown, then I'd start to think maybe it would be really cool to be from Philly."
This kind of marketing savvy is exactly what Urban Warrior was looking for when she invited four teams of advertising professionals to help her brainstorm ways to bring people back into the city and help make it grow. Quaker City Mercantile's focus on the young and "cool" crowd is a welcome change. After all, the idea that "brainy young people" are essential to successful cities - promoted by Carnegie Mellon prof Richard Florida - is now so mainstream that it's been cited by the New York Times as one of this year's 100 great ideas.
What follows are two full pages of color ads developed by Grasse and his team, with photos shot by skateboarding photographer Adam Wallacavage. But, Grasse cautions, the ads are just background. They'd have to be a part of a comprehensive marketing effort to highlight the city's counterculture and bring an aura of cool to otherwise gritty neighborhoods.
His title for the campaign?
"Philthy - The City That Bites You Back."
"Our solution would be to capture a taste of underground Philly and show how cool and fun it is," said Grasse. "Because once the cool people stay, the Wharton grads are soon to follow.
"It's a concept for Philadelphia's counterculture, taking the [city's] name and making it somewhat subversive," Grasse said. "It's a message that's aimed at the Khyber crowd, rather than the Kimmel crowd."
Grasse said the ads would underline a whole "Philthy" movement: Philthy nights at certain clubs, for instance, a Philthy fashion show and Philthy grants for young artists.
Finally, the launch should include a "Philthy Guide" to city life, featuring "110 places you can go to get Philthy."
"It would be a kind of Zagats for hipsters," Grasse said.
Grasse's "Gen-X" style plan seems edgy enough to raise eyebrows in a city known for establishment thinking.
But I think edge might be worth a shot, particularly if we are talking about attracting a generation of young people.
After all, do we always want to play second fiddle when it comes to urban cool? Why shouldn't cities like Boston, New Orleans and San Francisco get a little competition from this City of Brotherly Love?
"Philadelphia has a unique brand of style which you are not going to get anywhere else," Grasse said. "It's working-class attitude mixed with urban hipster. Very laid-back, but still very artistic. And I would argue that it rivals places like Brooklyn, which is very hip right now."
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Financial Express Features Quaker City Mercantile's Unique Puma Campaign
Financial Express Features Quaker City Mercantile's Unique Puma Campaign
11/04/02
"Puma Rolls Out Campaign With A Difference"
New Delhi: This is a print campaign with a difference. US-based sports and lifestyle brand Puma has just launched its global print campaign that has adopted animation as its style. Created by Quaker City Mercantile, the campaign will be used as a vehicle to introduce the brand's range that is due for launch in 2003.
The global campaign, which was launched simultaneously across the world in October, made its Indian debut in Cosmopolitan's anniversary issue last month and will appear in feature-related supplements in dailies also.
The campaign seeks to strengthen Puma's international positioning as the brand that 'mixes it up' and fuses the creative influences from the world of sports, lifestyle and fashion.
According to company sources, the campaign, which will continue to be created by Quaker City Mercantile, will be customised to the needs and interests of different countries.
Thus in India, the forthcoming cricket season may see a cricket-related animated ad series. It could even use Indian cricketers as animated characters, though a lot of endorsement issues would need to be tackled before this comes through. An animated series has been created with a storyline revolving around Adam Gilchrist of Australia.
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Financial Express Features Quaker City Mercantile's Unique Puma Campaign
Maxim Hypes Sailor Jerry
Maxim Hypes Sailor Jerry
11/01/2002
Yo Ho Ho - A great rum for life's heaving seas.
Chunks ahoy, matey! There once was a time when rum, uncut with girly cola, was the signature drink of the world's rip-snortin'est men-men who wrestled big guns on heaving poop decks and inflicted their own tattoos with the rustiest forks in the seven seas. Sailor Jerry, a Honolulu-based tattoo artist who made a mint with sexy togs and tattoos, now launches a rum to capture this hard-living lifestyle. Backed by helpful recipes (the Suffering Bastard, for one, lives up to its name), this rum packs a punch, yet goes down easier than a five-dollar syphilitic docks ide hooker. To shanghai your own bottle for $20, walk the cyberplank to sailorjerry.com
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Bikini Bandits Screening...
Bikini Bandits Screening...
10/25/2002
Sixty or so gun-toting bikini girls in a series of episodes focusing on the retard porn industry. With Dee Dee Ramone as the Pope, Maynard James Keenan as Satan, Jello Biafra as porn baron and Corey Feldman as himself. Followed by the launch party at the Cafe de Paris with 80s Matchbox B-Line Disaster.
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Cleavages large enough to lose a grenade in...
Cleavages large enough to lose a grenade in...
09/21/2002
Cleavages large enough to lose a grenade in, and enough guns to blow your head clean off about in Steven Grasse's exploitation satire. Imagine Buffy meeting Russ Meyer in a cafe in the Midwest and you have the ambience of Bikini Bandits, a series of bite-sized chunks that the production team deliberately makes a flimsy effort of weaving into a narrative after they broke ratings records on the broadband film channel Atom Films.
Thus the Bandits rescue a retarded Amish boy from an unwitting career as a porn star; they go to hell to do battle with Satan, sporting an enormous strap-on that fires laser bolts; they go back in time to party with a couple drunken Founding Fathers. Does any of this matter? More important are the cameos from Corey Feldman, who plays along like a trouper, and the late Dee Dee Ramone as the Pope, revealing himself to be the grand character actor we always suspected.
The film's awareness of its piecemeal make-up is evinced by the cartoon sequences of an increasingly uneasy director talking to editor Gabe Imlay about the film's (lack of) narrative structure. Things are further fragmented by the interludes for the shopping channel G-Mart, a kind of one-stop shop for the criminally insane, betraying Grasse's guerilla-advertising background. Busty host Mercedes and her buzz-cut companion Sam showcase items such as a crystal meth lab for kids (your child will learn about chemistry and economics with this kit'), devices to aid drunk-driving, and, of course, more guns. You can even check out the online outlet at www.Quaker City Mercantilemart.com
To say that all this reeks of bad taste is to impute Catholicism to the Pope. The amount of flesh on show invites ogling, but perhaps there is the hint of a critique in the way it never quite delivers on all of the male wish-fulfillment it so playfully and continually promises. However, it's probably a good bet to stay away from the cerebral, and just enjoy the ride. JK
Steven Grasse and Shyamala Joshi began their filmmaking career together with intent to create educational children's programming that was entertaining and engaging for the child as well as the parent. Finding this hard, they redirected their efforts to a series of T&A flicks full of guns, and hot rods, and shit. Contrary to rumors, Steven Grasse is not a 752-pound albino with alopecia. They appear in this production still with Pope Ramone. God bless you, Dee Dee. RIP.
Country: USA, Running Time: 60 mins, Format: Beta, Directors/Producers/Screenplay Steven Grasse, Shyamala Joshi DoP: Rhet Bear Editor: Gabe Imlay Cast: Dee Dee Ramone, Jello Biafra, Corey Feldman, Maynard James Keenan, Heather Victoria-Ray, Heather McDonnell, Betty San Luis, Cynthia Diaz, Robyn Bird Print Source Aliza Segal-Byrne Address: 38 N. 3rd, Philadelphia, PA 19106 USA T 215 923 6980 F 215 923 6981 Email: JenniferR@Quaker City Mercantileworldwide.com
Website: www.bikinibandits.com
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Puma in Adweek
Puma in Adweek
09/02/2002
Who is Travis Pastrana?
While not a household name, he is well known among extreme-sports fans as the world champion motocrosser.
And, in fact, there's a little bit of Pastrana in everyone, according to a new spot for Puma via Quaker City Mercantile (formerly known as Gyro Worldwide) in Philadelphia.
The spot introduces a new line of Pumas named after Pastrana, and features teens in situations that arise after motocrossing (which means riding a specially designed motorcycle on a closed course).
For example, one teen dangles from a bike that is hanging from a roof, while another is in a full-body cast. All the teens say, "I am Travis Pastrana." A voiceover states, "There's a little Pastrana in everyone."
There is no tagline. "We don't believe in taglines," said Steven Grasse, CEO of Quaker City Mercantile.
Previous ads ran during the World Cup and featured an animated Cameroon soccer team, a team Puma sponsors.
"We were focusing heavily on brand anthem ads, like 'The World of Puma.' " Grasse said. "Now we're focusing more on specific product categories."
The current spot, which targets 16- to 24-year-olds, broke late last month during the X Games in Philadelphia. It rolls out nationally on cable on Sept. 19.
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