Jon Johansen's doubleTwist — a package that lets you manage all your media, uncoupling iTunes and the iPhone — bought an ad outside the Apple Store by the Powell Street BART station in San Francisco, proclaiming that doubleTwist is "The Cure for iPhone Envy."
Not long after this cheeky — but paid-for — ad went up, BART tore it down, citing the lame excuse that the ad was "too dark." So doubleTwist submitted the same ad with a white background, and BART rejected it for "having a solid white background." Now they're doing it on a transparent background — what excuse do you suppose BART will come up with this time?
We then submitted the following revised ad with a white background. A white ad would have let even more light through (notice how bright the bottle is in the original ad above). However, it was rejected for having a solid white background (!).
At the ad agency's request, we then made the background completely transparent. It's a lot harder to read text on a transparent background… After complying with all their requests to change the ad, we still haven't been given a firm date on when the ad will be back up.
Apple is a major BART advertiser (in the past they've plastered entire BART stations with iPod ads). Apple's WWDC conference ends on Friday. It's pretty obvious what's going on here… I'm sure our ad will conveniently be back up after WWDC ends.
The Cure for iPhone Envy: The story behind the doubleTwist ad
(Thanks, Jon!)
