Kenneth Cole: April 2008 Archives

Many years ago, our company contracted for several billboards around the country, one of which sits prominently over northbound traffic on the West Side Highway in New York.

I am told the board presides over an estimated 100,000 vehicles that pass it each day.

Since its initiation, I've used it as a forum to impose a myriad of my thoughts (some commercial, some social, some both, and others neither) upon anyone that would be kind enough to "look up" while driving by.

The messages ranged from the introduction of new fragrances for men and women ("JUST WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS, MORE OF OUR TWO SCENTS"), to raising the issue of global warming ("MANY THINK THE U.S. IS CLOSE TO REDUCING GLOBAL WARMING. OTHERS THINK WE'RE JUST GETTING WARMER") to the marrying of a new women's shoe to a specific social/vehicular problem, like when gas prices began to soar again, we showed the shoe under the line "IF GAS PRICES CONTINUE TO RISE, WHY NOT SWITCH PUMPS?".

We are about to post a new message which includes a photograph of a condom and the copy says "SOME PROSTITUTION RINGS ARE SAFER THAN OTHERS --AMFAR.ORG AIDS RESEARCH."

AMFAR (The Foundation for AIDS Research), on whose board I have sat for over 20 years, and of which I am currently Chairman, is dedicated to the support of AIDS research, HIV prevention, treatment education, and the advocacy of sound AIDS-related public policy.

So, when we proposed using our billboard to communicate this message, it was a little controversial among some of my friends and a few AMFAR associates. Some worried that the message could be seen as a cheap shot at our former governor. If that were the case, it would have failed to accomplish its intention, while conceivably diminishing and/or trivializing the more important message.

We decided to "go with it" because the reason we were concerned would probably be the same reason that people would be likely to read it more carefully, and likely realize that this is clearly a public health message.

The ad doesn't go on to say, which we contemplated adding, that 60 percent of New Yorkers currently still practice unsafe sex.

Only once have I had a billboard ready to go up that I decided not to use.

In 2003, two weeks before we went into Iraq, I was ready to go up with a message that read: "THE LAST THING WE ALL NEED NOW IS A NEW WAR-drobe".

At the time, everybody said to me, regardless of how you feel on this issue, to be anything but supportive would be perceived as unAmerican, and certainly inappropriate at a time of war. There was also the concern that Americans would likely to be coming home shortly in body bags.

So out of respect for the circumstances, that specific message didn't get posted (although a version of it did at a future date). I took the advice offered, and laid low for a while. Instead, we did mostly patriotic stuff in that period of time, messages like the one we ran shortly after 9/11 "RED, WHITE AND BLUE IS THE NEW BLACK".

So while the message up there now is less controversial than a war, it addresses an issue no less deadly. And that's why I stand by my messages -- and will always make an effort to do the "write" thing.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it (for now).