mattmedia news release

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (Friday, May 21, 2004) — Not wishing to cause "a distraction," President Bush announced this month that he would not attend daughter Barbara's May 24 graduation from Yale University, but his likeness showed up to amuse the celebrants.

The Yale Daily News Commencement Issue, debuting today for distribution at all graduation and reunion activities and throughout the university and local communities, includes a large color advertisement promoting a satirical poster of George W. Bush, Yale Class of 1968. The ad, 6 1/2 by 10 1/2 inches on Page B-8, displays the three-fingers-up "FOUR MORE YEARS" caricature longtime New Yorker cartoonist Lee Lorenz created for the 18-by-22 posters, which went on sale nationally this week at $11 apiece. A small 3-color version of the ad appears on Page 101 of the Harper's Magazine that reached subscribers Monday, and an online version appears at www.mattmediafla.com, the marketing company's Web site.

"We wanted the Yale connection," said Matthew Lorenz, Lee Lorenz's son and founder of Tampa Bay-based mattmedia of Florida, Inc., an advertising and media-strategy firm in the hotbed state of the 2000 election. "That's not because both President Bushes went there, but because it's one of the first places you think of when you're looking for an intellectual, somewhat iconoclastic audience. I didn't even realize the president's daughter was graduating until the Yale News' general manager told me after we sent the ad.

"Some Yalies might resent the timing. But then, many Yalies resent being associated with G.W."

While the younger Barbara Bush follows George H.W. and George W. to the graduation stage of a 303-year-old university, the younger Lorenz said mattmedia also plans to market the poster through The Harvard Crimson, New York City's Village Voice, the Berkeley (Calif.) Daily Planet, and "irreverent book and gift stores." The Yale Daily News ad will run again in the Freshman Issue circulating in July. "Students always need to decorate their walls in ways that impress their new friends," mattmedia's president explained.

Wholesale deals are available to commercial distributors and political organizations, Matt Lorenz said, though he warned that "If someone wants to put a funny face on John Kerry, we'll sell that too."

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INFORMATION CONTACT: Matt Lorenz, www.mattmediafla.com, mattmedia@tampabay.rr.com or call 813-817-3339

GRAPHIC CONTACT: For pdf or high-resolution Photoshop tiff of poster art for news uses, contact mattmedia creative office at 813-817-3339, lorenz@mattmedia.com or lorenzrays@aol.com

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HISTORICAL IRONY FROM www.yale.edu: "Yale University was founded in 1701 as the Collegiate School in the home of Abraham Pierson, its first rector, in Killingworth, Connecticut. In 1716 the school moved to New Haven . . . with the generous gift by Elihu Yale of nine bales of goods, 417 books, and a portrait and arms of King George I."