Branding Opportunity: Instead of Jesus Jeans…?

If you believe that there's no such thing as bad publicity, you might be able to find a branding opportunity following in the wake of the furor over the teddy bear naming in the Sudan. As a reminder: the Teddy Bear was named after American President T.R. Roosevelt.*

In Italy entrepreneur Maurizio Vitale took a bold step. An article in Time magazine November l983 quotes Vitale, then 38, "I decided to name my product after the biggest revolutionary in history." The president of the Italian sportswear company, Maglificio Calzificio Torinese, The product, Jesus Jeans, debuted in the early 1970s.

“Noticing the popularity of blue jeans in Europe and the U.S., as well as the growing number of youthful so-called Jesus freaks, Vitale combined the two enthusiasms into a single product, and thus created Jesus Jeans. To advertise the new pants, he used billboards displaying curvaceous, jean-clad female bodies and slogans like-"Thou shall have no other jeans before me," and "He who loves me, follows me." The attention-grabbing campaign quickly spurred sales, despite protests from church leaders that the ads were blasphemous.”

Oh. The words appeared on the derriere of the model. On a beach she’d probably be tugging down the swimsuit to cover the—her—bottom. You can see the image here.

The auction on the “surplus teddy bear” had five days to go when it disappeared from ebay, and the bid was way over tw0-hundred USD this morning. The image has been removed, but you can still find it on jihad watch, here.

Here's one version of the story of how that happened--and an image of the cartoon: "On November 14, 1902, Roosevelt was helping settle a border dispute between Mississippi and Louisiana. During his spare time he attended a bear hunt in Mississippi. During the hunt, Roosevelt came upon a wounded young bear and ordered the mercy killing of the animal. The Washington Post ran a editorial cartoon created by the political cartoonist Clifford K. Berryman that illustrated the event. The cartoon was called "Drawing the Line in Mississippi" and depicted both state line dispute and the bear hunt. At first Berryman drew the bear as a fierce animal, the bear had just killed a hunting dog. Later, Berryman redrew the bear to make it a cuddly cub. The cartoon and the story it told became popular and within a year, the cartoon bear became a toy for children called the teddy bear.

United Nations Report Implicates Arab Emirates in Providing Arms to Somalia through Eritrea. Eritrea Talks with Saudis About Somalia and Sudan.

In July, “Shabait, Eritrea’s Ministry of Information news source online said, ”Eritrea’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Mr. Mohammed Omar Mahmoud, held talks with the country’s Crown Prince and Deputy Prime Minister, Emir Sultan Bin AbdulAziz Al-Seud, on bilateral relations, the situation in Somalia and Sudan, and the Eritrean-Ethiopian border issue.”

Consider the ways in which Eritrea has been contributing arms, explosives, anti-aircraft missiles to the Shabaab in Somalia, and the talks with Saudi Arabia become more significant. The United Nations Monitoring Group’s [MG] report to the Security Council on financing of these arms, which included a statement that, regarding sale of IL-76 aircraft to a company in Eritrea—a company which, the report said, (p.9) “had purchased the aircraft as a front for the Eritrean Government. The person also indicated that a down payment of US$200,000 had been paid by Eritrean diplomats based in a Gulf Country to the seller of the aircraft.”

Was the Gulf Country Saudi Arabia? or was it the United Arab Emirates, with whom it also has close relations? Evidence points to the United Arab Emirates for assistance with other arms provision and airplane flights.

“The MG received information that in November and December 2006 a Boeing 707 aircraft, using registration number 9G-OAL, call signs FBA2515 and FBA2516, and owned by Aerogem Aviation Lt, based in Ghana, departed from the airports of Asmara and Assab, Eritrea, destined for Somalia. Furthermore, reported to be on board the aircraft, and intended for delivery to the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), were a variety of arms.

The MG was also informed that the aircraft operator had filed, in some instances, false flight plans indicating final destination of the aircraft to be Uganda or Mozambique, instead of Mogadishu. According to information in possession of the Group, the aircraft made at least 13 rotations to Mogadishu in 25 days. (pp. 9, 10)

Although Eritrea denied the flights had taken place, the “International Civilil Aviation Organization (ICAO) confirmed the flights. Mozambique said that investigations showed that the aircraft did not land in Mozambican territory.

Uganda reported to the MG that the aircraft had mad a stopover for refueling en route to Juba, Sudan. [Emphasis added.]

In response to a query, “Aerogen replied that during the period under investigation the aircraft in question had been leased to an airline company based in the United Arab Emirates. The company provided a copy of the lease agreement, flight logs, manifests, letter from the lesee and a letter from their operations office in the United Arab Emirates.” [Emphasis added]

“The call sign FBA used by the aircraft is, according to ICAO Airline Designator Guide attributed to airline company Fab Air, registered in Kyrgyzstan but operating out of the United Arab Emirates. In a letter dated jun6 June 2007, the Government of Kyrgyzstan stated tht Fab Air was closed in January 2007, because it had not complied with regulation of the Civil Aviation Department of Kyrgyzstan.” (pp. 10-11)

All page numbers in this blog entry refer to the complete United Nations Monitoring Group submitted to the UN Security Council. See blog entry below for signers and other details.