Tattoos, once a symbol of rebellion, are now being used in advertising for cars, tires and energy drinks. Walking billboards

NEW YORK (AP) — What does Angelina Jolie have in common with Joseph Stalin and Thomas Edison as well as two out of every five Americans between the ages of 26 and 40?

They all have tattoos.

Once seen as a silent cry of rebellion, tattoos now posses a status so firmly mainstream that advertisers are using them to market everything from tires and shoes to wine and energy drinks. That has its downside, though. The more acceptable tattoos become, the more they lose their edginess — and their value as advertising.

“There is always an element of rebellion or rite of passage with these things,” said David Crockett, assistant professor of marketing at the University of South Carolina. “What makes them interesting is how the marketplace appropriates that rebelliousness and serves that back to you in the form of an energy drink.”

The 7-Eleven convenience store chain recently started selling an energy drink called Inked, aimed at people who either have tattoos or those who want to think of themselves as the tattoo type. The company plans to market the drink at motorcycle rallies and tattoo conventions.

As the attention of young consumers gets spread between TV, blogs, online video and other distractions, marketers have resorted to alternative methods to get their interest.

Marketers use tattoos both as a cultural icon and as the method to deliver the message, said Kevin Lane Keller, a marketing professor at the Tuck business school at Dartmouth College.

“It’s an attempt to do something different in a fresh way,” he said.

On a never-ending quest to appeal to the young and young-minded, companies from Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. to Volvo are using tattoos in advertising and promotion.

For three years, Goodyear’s Dunlop tire unit has offered a set of free tires to anyone who will get the company’s flying-D logo tattooed somewhere on their body, and 98 people have taken up the offer. Some of them are brand loyalists who already own Dunlop tires, while others were tattoo fans who wanted to add to their body art, Dunlop brand marketing manager Janice Consolacion said. One returned for his third Dunlop tattoo this year.

For those friendly to the idea of being a walking billboard, the Web site Leaseyourbody.com connects advertisers with people who want to be paid for sporting tattoo advertisements.

Volvo recently utilized tattoos in another way, by creating a fictional character whose tattoos spelled out the coordinates of an undersea location of $50,000 in gold coins and the keys to a new car. Linda Gangeri, national advertising manager of Volvo Cars of North America, said the tattoo man was a way to get people to think differently about the Volvo brand.

Tattoos are becoming so pervasive that some see them as less effective in marketing to trendsetters.

Nathan Lin, a tattoo artist and organizer of the annual Boston Tattoo Convention, said the event’s sponsors reflect the shifting demographics of tattoo culture in the U.S. This year, it was Toyota Motor Corp.’s Scion brand and Anheuser Busch Cos.’ Budweiser. Next year’s convention has gotten sponsorship interest from Internet service provider NetZero among other corporate names, he said.

A study done last year by the Pew Research Center shows that 36 percent of 18- to 25-year-olds have at least one tattoo, while an even higher 40 percent of 26- to 40-year-olds have at least one.