Truly, every square inch of everything everywhere is for sale, or at least for rent. Corporate identities, logos, tag lines and names are plastered on almost everything possible, from professional sports arenas, to taxis cabs, to cafeteria food trays and beyond. So why not guitar cases of NYC subway musicians????

Luke Ryan has been playing his guitar and singing in the NYC subways for 30 years. In a faded black t-shirt and and tattered leather vest, Ryan cranks out his tunes in a prime location right in Grand Central Station. Like others in his profession, his prime source of revenue has always been the spare bills and change tossed into his open guitar case by appreciative passer-bys and in-between train listeners. That is until recently.

As a joke, Mr Ryan put a sign inside his case reading, “PIMP MY CASE!” Well, the joke turned into reality when someone took him up on his offer. That someone was Unilever, the Holland-based food and homeproducts giant. They asked Ryan to put a simple sign that reads “Axe Instinct” into his open guitar case. Unilever owns Axe, a personal care line that is targeted at young men using unusual marketing tactics. Axe Instinct is a newly launched leather-scented deodorant. For posting the sign, distributing free samples and agreeing to play an Axe jingle, “Look Good in Leather”, a few times a day, Ryan (and 20 other street musicians and college bands around the US) were paid approximately $1,000 for 4 months of service.

Asked if it was authentic to have street performers singing a corporate jingle, a Unilever spokesperson said he thought it was. “The song itself is a song that was created in 2002 and not just for the ad campaign — it was an existing, organic type of music. We thought it fit perfectly.”

Interviewed by the New York Times, Ryan says he had sworn never to sell out. But today’s economy is tough even on subway singers, so when Unilever asked him, he said, “Well, why not?” Besides, he says, commercial branding is plastered all over the subway, so no one seems to notice his subtle Axe ad. In addition, Ryan thinks more deodorant sales would be a social plus. “If there was more of that stuff going on in the subway,” he notes “It’d be a better place.”

While so much of corporate sponsorship and brand-plastering doesn’t do anything positive for anyone, big round of applause for Unilever for creative and understated brand placement, providing cash to performers who can really use it and, most importantly, promoting the use of deodorant by subway riders!

(In the spirit of full disclosure, Unilever is a Naked Client, but I discovered this campaign independently in a New York Times article and it was not our idea. Love to know whose it was though…….)