Lance Rides on Art in the Tour de France

This year's tour is over and after a three year break, Lance Armstrong came in a solid third place. Many of us are excited about the comeback and look forward to what 2010 may hold for Lance and his teammates. For this years race, Trek, Nike, Lance Armstrong and some of the best artists alive today have teamed up together to create STAGES, a rolling art exhibit with Lance's Trek bikes used as the canvas. Shepard Fairy, Kaws, Kenny Scharf, Marc Newson, Yoshitomo Nara and Damien Hirst have all participated and the bikes will be auctioned off to raise money for the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

Pictured above is a bike designed by Damien Hirst in which he used real butterflies to apply to the bike frame. Sounds crazy, looks amazing.

MJ takes his leave

Can a person be a brand? This week we said goodbye to one of our own here in Los Angeles. Say what you will about the man, but he led quite a colorful life full of twists and turns and always had the ability to make us take notice. Recently, he was about to make a comeback by launching a huge tour with 50 shows in London, just to kick it off. Even though many of us did not fully embrace his antics or lifestyle - throw on a "Thriller" cd and see what happens to the energy in the room.

Somehow, secretly we were all rooting for the Michael we used to know and hoped to see again. If you look at MJ "the brand", it speaks volumes about what we as a collective will forgive if the brand is built on a solid gold foundation and goes sideways. Even though the current experience doesn't quite match our earlier takeaway, we look at the brand through a forgiving lens based on what was delivered previously. The bigger the initial payoff for us, the more forgiving we become.


GM is another brand that comes to mind that had America, if not the world, enthralled with it's product and image, but, eventually ran out of "brand credibility" to be a brand to be trusted. There is indeed a limit to what we will endure from a broken brand. Even though we still love the brand, it's like that crazy uncle that always shows up late to Thanksgiving, throws up on the couch and passes out. Love the guy, but from a cautious distance.

So, with a heavy heart and a single gloved hand we wave a fond goodbye to MJ as he rides of into the sunset on a circus elephant. Adios MJ and godspeed.