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Ad Busting 2.0

16:18 / 07.07.01

I don't know if anyone else thought about it, or if there's already a thread.

I thought of this after reading AdBusters this month and still thinking about some things I had read in No Logo. Ad Busting seems to be a dead end. There's a basic flaw in it, you can't beat an enemy that keeps absorving you. Superman won't do much to a giant robot made of super flexible chewing gum, it keeps absorbing his punches and trying to gobble up Superman. I think this is what's happening with AdBusting.

But if marketers get mildly pissed off with denigrating leaflets and ad busters and all that, if the biggest brands are finding ways to turn that into an advantage, what really pisses them off is people trying to do their work. A brand is a sentient being. They take care of it, make it grow, they plan a brand's life from day one. An attack on the brand is something to be expected like measles or a mild flu and there are ways to get around that.

But what if someone acts on the relationship between marketers and the brand? What if someone else starts to make positive advertising for the brand? What if someone interferes with the strategy? You wanna fight McDonald's? Simple. Try to think as the advertisers do. Now do a leaflet campaign. But a real one. Study headlines, images, claims. Now put your own messages inside it. "McDonald's Hamburguers are delicious, but McDonald's cares about YOU. Moderate your hamburguer consumption, please."

Have kids spraying american cities with graffittis saying "have a coffee at Starbuck's". Let them smear the whole city until someone complains to Starbucks. Make them commit themselves not to import coffee from countries where violations of human rights occur. How? Simple. Just make a leaflet, professional looking, and spread it. What, do you think they'll deny it?? Will you get arrested for using their logo? Well, you could be anyway if you defaced some billboard. So...

Don't target the advertising, target the advertiser. Replace him, do his job for him. Change it all. Good advertising should be fought with better advertising. Maybe it'll work...

13:20 / 09.07.01

I've had this thought before...

There was a bit in that semi-documentary miniseries "The 70s" (I watched it to review it, kay?) where one of the characters gets a job with the Nixon campaign's dirty tricks department.

He posed as a McGovern campaigner, was very vocal and obnoxious, spouting rhetoric about the evil Democrats, getting in people's faces, that sort of thing. Anyone he met was moved not to vote for either of the people he was ranting about.

16:13 / 09.07.01

Quick question - is this not immoral?

ynh

16:58 / 09.07.01

Immoral how?

In the sense that you're lying? Or in the sense that the gfaffito "Have a coffee at Starbucks" is essentially supporting a company that by extension institutionalizes horrifying labour practices?

Bruce Sterling mocked up a similar idea in Holy Fire wherein German punks had tagged the walls with "To buy a new car makes you sexually attractive" and "Consume non-renewable resources to gratify your immediate desires."

Note: Libel laws are much harsher than those regulating vandalism.

17:08 / 09.07.01

I think there's a significant difference between pushing slogans to a point where they become patently absurd and revealing, and masquerading as the people in question and spreading information on their behalf. I think the latter position COULD be considered immoral - in that you are basically lying on behalf of the multinational and hoping that they'll take the blame for the misinformation that you are circulating on their behalf. Of course just because something is immoral doesn't mean that it isn't worth doing...

20:22 / 09.07.01

Immoral? Is that what you mean? Or do you mean "unethical"?

Of course it is. But Ad Busting treads a fine line, huh? Like, defacing a Gap billboard making it look like a skull. Ain't that unethical? I mean, you could spread leaflets about the working conditions at Gap, but you know no one would listen. Defacing is much more visible.

No, I wouldn't put it as "unethical".

IT's coward. That I can agree with.

But have you noticed? : It's the enemy that's been using you so far, not the opposite.

10:26 / 11.07.01

...or...have you seen any recent uses of this kind of thinking by the industry? While walking down the street a few weeks back I happened upon the Gap where it first appeared to be tagged by some line on the window in spraypaint with a word like "freedom" or something or other. After closer inspection, it was adheared by the inside of the window and was just a complete mockery of it through some tricky window campaign. Want to give them some conceptual props though...
And as far as Adbusters is concerned, I don't have any special feeling for them. I saw their mag sitting in a chic little spot in the aisle of everyone's favorite yuppie grocery store. I think discussion (which in turn brings me here) is much more effective in relating things. Sorry that more people don't look for it on their own.

10:32 / 11.07.01

and somewhat off the topic, relating more to design (taken from a k10k message posting < http//:www.k10k.com/ > ) but still on the activist tip....

I'm getting so sick & tired of the design community / scene / whatever.

A friend of mine wrote to me:

These days if you want to be known as a cool 'graphic designer' on the web, think against corporations and don't try to be popular ...
It seems it's the new mode or tendency in the design community on the web now. Don't follow by following. I think everyone is totally out of idea and don't know what they want.
Everyone want to think for theirself and don't want to be like their neighbor but they all do the same thing ... a large lack of originality.
And I think he's right. Right now they are so many people whining about the "large" design sites, telling them they've sold out, that they're "traffic makers", that they're killing web design, whatever - but what these people just fail to grasp is:
a. nobody is making any money
b. nobody gives a shit about traffic
c. nobody deserves to be called famous (because they're not - you may know them, i may know them, but in the real world that doesn't mean shit)
and
d. if you think something is bad, create something better yourself (but don't moan about it constantly)

If people stopped up and thought about the last point, we might actually have some sort of community going on - but, alas, most people would rather bitch than create. And that's kind of sad.

...I think a lot of people are interested in changing perception nowadays, so...go to it already...

11:09 / 14.04.02

But don't we end up with the same trashy star-trek moral problems --> if we do that how are we behaving better than our enemies?

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

14:08 / 14.04.02

Ad busting to me almost seems like a lose-lose proposition. Any technique that is used against ads anymore is absorbed and used by them, and they are able to win awards doing it and get free News coverage.

I like the idea of pushing an ad to the extreme, spraying pro-Starbucks grafitti is a good one, but to be honest, evreything I can think of to show the absudity of advertising has already been done. McDonald's Logos on clothing? Hey, McDonald's uniforms are a fashion statement now, as are UPS and FedEx uniforms.

Anyone remember when MAD would take Logos and put them inside words that described what the company is actually doing?

Think THAT might work a bit better than current adbusting? I think anything that is funny lasts longer in the brain than a serious message.

Irony of Ironies

20:00 / 14.04.02

Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm puzzled about what the point would be to doing this? How would it encourage people to create an alternative to Starbucks (eg.), how would it encourage people to use alternatives?

22:56 / 14.04.02

Now that's a very good question - but fundamentally I suppse that's presupposing that that's the objective. An alternative perspective might be that the point of the process is to undermine the effectiveness of branding and 'promotion' - making people unsure whether or not statements were made by organisations or by people parodying organisations... So I suppose the question might be 'how does this undermine the branding process - thus freeing people' (if that is indeed what would happen) rather than 'how does this help people find alternatives to Starbucks...

23:35 / 14.04.02

it's a problem of goal defining, isn't it? if the goal is to cleverly show the absurdity of branding, then "adbusting" works. it's a creative goal. if the goal is to force corporations into telling the truth / acting more responsibly to the environment / employees / the government, then you need a different tactic. the allure of the "adbusters" phenomenon is that it appeals to us creative types, it is anarchistic and clever. it seems clear that No Logo is used by people who "resist" corporate culture just as often as it is used by folks in pursuit of branding. hell, it's the clearest explanation of what branding is AND HOW TO DO IT. but as i mentioned in the brainwashing thread, branding itself is hardly the problem if we isolate the problems, we can figure out better ways to deal with them.

i.e., the moral issue of "aren't we acting just as bad as them" doesn't hold up if we are targetting a corporation that destroys rainforest land in pursuit of cheeper burgers. this is the action around which we draw the battle lines, not that of honesty in pamphleteering.

03:44 / 15.04.02

This is more an example than a contribution to discussion, but whatever.

There is a semi-famous story from maybe ten years ago in Melbourne, when a couple of kids working for a student union decided to print up thousands of flyers for free hamburgers at MacDonalds. They walked around MCG parking lot - the MCG is Melbourne's major football oval - and stuck the flyers under people's windshield wipers during a finals match. Basically they said as part of McDonalds' support for sport, health, and all things Aussie they would give away one free Big Mac per coupon.

McDonalds honoured all the coupons. I'm not sure if that's because it's some sort of policy, or the kids at the registers just thought they looked genuine.