Dr. Martens apologizes for "unauthorized" dead punks campaign, fires advertising agency

Famous U.K. based footware maker Dr. Martens has fired the ad agency responsible for the recently unveiled print / poster campaign featuring deceased punks Kurt Cobain, Sid Vicious, Joey Ramone and Joe Strummer. The posters, created by Saatchi & Saatchi London, depicted the iconic personalities as angels wearing the famous boots. A statement David Suddens, CEO of Airwair Ltd, reads:

Dr Martens is very sorry for any offense that has been caused by the publication of images showing dead rock icons wearing Dr Martens boots. Dr Martens did not commission the work as it runs counter to our current marketing activities based on FREEDM, which is dedicated to nurturing grass roots creativity and supporting emerging talent. As a consequence, Dr Martens has terminated its relationship with the responsible agency.

An earlier article at the Daily Swarm claimed that the images have been cleared for use in the U.K. only, in an arrangement with Corbis (the supplier of the original photographs). The images were created enhanced by photographer Dimitri Daniloff and retoucher Christophe Huet. You can view the originals here.