Has anyone seen the one dollar bills bearing the signatures of the head of the treasury and secretary to the US treasury being issued by the ICB with Garry Carter where George Washington should be and a bastardisation of in God we trust in the corner.
There's no fear of the ICB dollar being mixed up with the real one despite having Federal Reserve emblazened across the top of the note... but.... I think someone in quality control of this excercise has missed that they have used the real signatures!
Here's a link to ad people patting each other on the back with no realisation what they've just done :
Now compare those signatures to a real dollar bill (not the current incumbants of those offices but those signatures are still available on legal tender).
Both the ICB and real versions are complete with copies of the signatures of Anna Escobedo Cabral and John W Snow.
Actually, if you've got one of those dollars might be worth holding onto it as a collectors item as suspect that as soon as the mistakes realised they're going to be trying to pull them all back to reprint without those signatures on.
I'm sure that even as I write this the in house ICB legal team are repeatedly hitting their heads on their desks in frustration that this mistake somehow flew under the net unnoticed.
Anyway, sure that now people are beginning to notice it (it was actually brought to my attention, this wasn't me that originally saw this) it will all be quickly fixed.
And in the sense of fair play once it is fixed I will take this thread down.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
This is really interesting and the first time I have seen it. ICB have a new marketing team and this is just a bit of tongue in cheek fun but the politically correct brigade have obviously seen the error in the marketing dollar bill. I remember making an old post about the UK being little America. Seems I was right lol.
Dave
-- Edited by Dave Campbell on Thursday 5th of September 2013 07:13:01 AM
I got one of these the other day, but didn't pay much attention to it. In fact it's still in my to read pile. I actually feel sorry for the marketing department.
When I was manager at a local credit union I had similar problems with a promotional idea. The banks were cylinders with expanding sides. The idea was we'd hand them out to school children and they could really watch their money grow. Oh did I mention they were purple with our name stamped on them. Anyway we got the samples which the board approved then plunged a few thousand pounds (a lot for a small credit union) leftover for a grant into buying them. The day I was about to take the first batch to a local school I was stopped in the way into the office with someone waving a copy of The Sun at me and saying "aren't these your banks?"
It seems one of the Yorkshire Police forces had teamed up with a bank having a similar idea and The Sun had got hold pf one and claimed they looked like a big penis. Bang went my first marketing outing, there I was with 2 grand of banks I could do nothing with.
yes, my note above wasn't meant in any form of nasty way but rather a whoa, have you seen this mistake!
I've also worked in the past with marketing companies and its as if the creative people get behind their apple macs with blinkers on in respect to minor inconsequential things like laws (such as putting the US Treasurers signature on the bottom of a companies advertising materials!).
Thankfully with the banks nothing gets slapped on posters or printed on inserts until the legal team has been over it with a fine tooth comb (and the banks really have the best in house legal teams).
I really don't think that this error is the ICBs at all but rather they've had an idea and trusted someone else to implement it and in such circumstance even though I am sure that they would have have proof read the design I would not be expecting to burden all of the cost of rectification myself.
The worst one's are those where the advertisers, normally a disgruntled employee with a new job already lined up slips something into the ad on purpose in the hope that it won't be noticed until they are long gone.
The complexity of such varies from the time honoured hidden messages as the first letter of each word (including the not so subtle first word down the left hand side of the ad, a classic two finger salute to the client that we haven't seen since the 1980's) to the hidden picture within a picture that the casual viewer would not see (Coke and KFC have both fallen foul of that one and you can imagine the cost of their advertising).
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Wow bit over-reaction (I would be lying if I didn't think that was the intention from ICB )
The legal team did the research and you can use the dollar bill design completely as long as it cannot be mistaken for actual currency. In other words they could have printed one without changing anything as the size and material are different.
It has got a great response as intended, all part of getting the bookkeeping profession out there
So, following that logic I can have the signature of the head and secretary of the federal reserve at the bottom of anything that I care to write, no matter how outlandish such statements should be provided that I do such on a psuedo dollar bill.
Sorry, not seeing it.
If you read above I didn't say that there was any risk of mistaking yours for the real one. The whole argument relates to copying someones signature.
Think that your legal guys need to look at it again from a different perspective.
I'm sure that first time the question was asked it was about use of the format of the dollar bill, not of use of those signatures.
There are two things that you should not have copied. The number of the bill used as a basis (which you didn't) and the signatures (which you did). (thats besides things like paper type, size and watermarks of course).
Of couse, sure that you sent a copy of you ad to the Fed to get confirmation before using the campaign so its probably me thats wrong.
As for the shock approach adopted by the ICB personally I do not agree with the Phineas Barnum philosphy of all publicity being good publicity.
To me this is going for the shock marketing approach of the likes of Benneton which to my mind does not fit in this industry.
kind regards,
Shaun.
p.s. absolutely no offence is intended. I've worked in businesses (some of them very large) where no matter what thoughts people may have had, nobody (well, except me!) said no to the senior management.
From the reactions that I'm getting off line I cannot imagine that everyone in ICB towers thought in their hearts that this campaign was agood idea.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Mmm, well I certainly wouldn't like to risk leaving peoples signatures at the bottom of a docuemtn that they have nothing to do with.
The rules that you are going up against for the rest of it is 18 U.S.C. 475 - Imitating obligations or securities; advertisements
specifically :
Whoever designs, engraves, prints, makes, or executes, or utters, issues, distributes, circulates, or uses any business or professional card, notice, placard, circular, handbill, or advertisement in the likeness or similitude of any obligation or security of the United States is sued under or authorized by any Act of Congress or writes, prints, or otherwise impresses upon or attaches to any such instrument, obligation, or security, or any coin of the United States, any business or professional card, notice, or advertisement, or any notice or advertisement whatever, shall be fined under this title.
The above needs also to be viewed alongside Regan V. Times, Inc. (1984)
which resulted in 1996 guidance allowing reproduction provided that :
1. The currency reproduction is more than 1½ the size or less than ¾ the size, in linear dimension, of the currency or any part of the currency.
2. The illustration must be one-sided.
3. All negatives, plates, positives, digitized storage medium, graphic files, magnetic medium, and optical storage that contain an image of the illustration shall be destroyed and/or deleted or erased after their final use.
Now to me that sounds as though you can use a dollar bill image and you can even bastardise it provided that such is not anywhere close to the correct size and there is image only on flip side of it.
My issue is still with the inclusion of those signatures, but, if you're happy to run with it so be it. Not something that I would do as I find guerilla / shock advertising a little down market.
Certainly an interesting debate though that even had me reading US legislation and case law in original form.
The ICB are certainly expanding my knowledge base, lol.
Have a good weekend James,
Talk soon,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
-- Edited by Shamus on Sunday 8th of September 2013 12:51:55 PM
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Admirable research, Shaun. But does the writ of US Federal Courts extend as far as Minster Court, or is this situation one where we must refer to the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act enacted by the UK Parliament in 1981? s14 of that Act makes it an offence to make a counterfeit currency note with the intention of passing it off as genuine.
I don't think that intention could ever be proved in this case.
As for the reproduction of private US citizens' signatures, is it not for the individuals concerned to pursue the matter through UK courts if they feel they have been caused loss or damage?
Nevertheless, I agree the ICB were unwise to include those signatures and I've enjoyed the thread ... even though it seems to have ruffled a few feathers among the people on the ICB forum. (Perhaps because of that!)
good points. I was going for the option of the ICB top table being redacted en mass due to the "special relationship" so went from the US courts perspective. Which, thinking about it doesn't seem unreasonable at it was a US Federal employee so one would expect any legal action to occur in the jurisdiction of the wronged party.
Ooh, is their thread still going. I'll go and have a gander to see what further discussions ensued.
Talk in a bit,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Admirable research, Shaun. But does the writ of US Federal Courts extend as far as Minster Court, or is this situation one where we must refer to the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act enacted by the UK Parliament in 1981? s14 of that Act makes it an offence to make a counterfeit currency note with the intention of passing it off as genuine.
Can you define "passing it off as genuine" ?
Does that mean trying to spend it in a shop - or would it also mean trying to fool someone the Clydesdale Bank £10 note I've just made a photocopy of (one side) and stuck on the floor of a bus/train is real?
__________________
Never buy black socks from a normal shop. They shaft you every time.
)
