One Not To Miss: TIm Jackson's Radical Jesters

VIA Wooster Collective

If you're interested in the subject of Culture Jamming, Tim Jackson's new film Radical Jesters is a must see.

You can watch the whole film online here.

Difusor.org on Subvertising

I just found Difusor through a friend and I couldn't be happier with their views on public advertising and how we should go about dealing with it. I have always promoted the complete removal of outdoor advertising by artists. Simple rearrangements and critical commentary not only leave the brand recognizable but often reinforce the advertisements original goal by drawing your attention to the advertisement with even more force.

ADVERTISING

For us, as for many other people, massive outdoor advertising is a problem: promotes excessive and careless consumption , it’s ugly, obscene and visually pollute the environment and spirits.

As a problem to us, we want to find a solution.

SUBVERTISING

Subvertising is a technique that seeks to subvert, or at least question the message.

However, we believe that its real effectiveness is null or even counterproductive for the goal that has been created. Perhaps the message subverted ad questioning but also reinforces the brand. Generating controversy is a key factor in most campaigns, and is a largely explained strategy in marketing bibliography.

Therefore, we believe that subvertising is marketing 2.0, that made by users without wanting to, without knowing it, without charge, and on, believing that it is a critical tool. As has happened in several campaigns, subvertising itself is part of a guerrilla marketing campaign . Street marketing is a technique used mostly in central Europe and it works like this:

1. Companies launch the street marketing campaign.
2. They wait for the reaction of the target, which normally consists of “subversive” alterations in the advertising format.
3. Reaction is incorporated as part of the campaign, launching the second and final phase of ads, which include the “subversive” changes obtained.

What happened?

1. They have turned off the most critical and creative direct answer.
2. They have incorporated the target (young, urban and creative) to the brand dynamics .

AD BUFFING

We believe that one way to do subvertising is not doing it at all, not using their language, not to using their logos. Buffing is a concept created for the cleanup in the railway system in New York in the early times of graffiti. From there it was extended, indicating any action to clear graffiti.

We present below three examples of how doing it:

Option 1: trash container

This is the best place for advertising.

Option 2: billboards

If the posters are glued properly, the option would be as follows:

Option 3: eyetracking

You can always be creative. Eye tracking is a term that refers to the process that evaluates the point where the gaze is fixed or the movement of the eye. This process is used in research on visual systems in psychology, in cognitive linguistics and in product design. In this case, the hot zones are the most significant for the design concerning its effectiveness to communicate. Where there was relevant information for the ad is where we have put more effort into covering.

Paul Rudd (Fan) Reaches Out to Poster Boy?

A few weeks ago I spoke to a class of Parsons students studying, "applied disciplines that are fundamentally engaged with society and culture within the art context", as the program description describes. I talked about PublicAdCampaign and installed a project so that they could see alternative media projects in action. This was right around when the whole PosterBoy thing was getting a lot of press, and we discussed his, or their work as well. Turns out the students created projects which critically engaged the PosterBoy concept and this happens to be one of them. We were asked to come back to the class to critique and discuss the student projects and this happened to be one of my favorites. There were many more letters from a wide variety of advertisements. Some were funnier than others but I thought in general, they gave the ads a pathetic and cynical quality that I like to associate with advertising in general. Well done.

from Gothamist by Jen Carlson

Photo via rj3dc's flickr.

Is an unlikely bromance in the air? Has Paul Rudd reached out to Poster Boy with specifics about how he wants the I Love You, Man ad campaign altered? This letter was spotted on the downtown 6 platform at 51st Street. The actor does like to take on fake names (at a recent Virgin Megastore appearance he went under "Fred Rudd"), so giving himself a musical moniker of "Raul" does fit his M.O. However, this is probably just the work of a crazy Rudd fan, or some sort of plan by Dreamworks to enliven their boring posters.

Bubble Project Manifesto

The Bubble Project has been taking back our streets since 2005. Today, Wooster Collective announced, "..the second book in our "Books We Love" series is Ji Lee's Talk Back: The Bubble Project which came out from Mark Batty publisher in 2006." In the posting, Wooster includes Ji Lee's Manifesto which is a very concise argument for the need for open participation in our public discourse. Very insightful.

NYC interactive

I guess the cat's out of the bag on this one so I might as well post it here too. This interactive piece was done by Joe Bernstien, and Ben Piven on the fine art of Subvertising. In it I install another weaving piece and Steve Lambert gives a brief explanation of his Ad Art Firefox hack. Thanks again to both of those guys for taking interest in our projects.