Buyways by Catherine Gudis, 2004, Excerpts
Since the 1970s, a new generation of activists determined to rid the landscape of “litter on a stick,” and impatient with a system that favored corporate over grassroots interests, took up their own “extralegal” means of policing billboards. Their activities ranged from that of the “Billboard Bandit,” who used a chainsaw to cut down billboards along
Similar strategies were revived in the 1980s and 1990s, when urban residents noticed that while wealthy residential areas were billboard free, poor minority neighborhoods were under siege from liquor and cigarette advertisements. Beer and liquor brands have always been leading advertisers in the outdoor medium, with cigarette companies joining them after a forced withdrawal from television and radio advertising in the 1970s. For some time, the two products generated at least 40 percent of all outdoor advertising revenue.
Frustrated by his fruitless attempts to have such billboards banned in his impoverished African American parish of the south side of
Pioneers in these billboard-busting efforts are Jack Napier and
Proponents say that these subversions of intended corporate messages can turn the “one-way information flow” of advertising into a public discourse that gives airtime to a silent majority who cannot afford privately controlled public spaces. They describe these activities as re-appropriating corporate-dominated channels of communication. In many cases, culture jammers try to use the strategies of Madison Avenue against it, but the effect of this activity is hard to gauge.
Marketing Embraces Jammers
No Logo by Naomi Klein, 2002, Excerpts
Marketers are increasingly joining in the fun. It turns out that culture jamming – with its combination of hip-hop attitude, punk anti-authoritarianism and a well of visual gimmicks – has great sales potential. Yahoo has an official culture-jamming site on the internet, filed under “alternative.”
Perhaps the point of no return came in 1997 when Mark Hosler of Negativland received a call from the ultra-hip ad agency Wieden & Kennedy asking if the band that coined the term “culture jamming” would do the soundtrack for a new Miller Genuine Draft commercial. The decision to turn down the request and the money was simple enough, but it still sent him spinning. Another rude awakening came when Hosler first saw Sprite’s “Obey Your Thirst” campaign. “That commercial was a hair’s breath away from a song on our Dispepsi record. It was surreal. It’s not just the fringe that’s getting absorbed now – that’s always happened. What’s getting absorbed now is the idea that there’s no opposition left, that any resistance is futile.”
Wieden & Kennedy: A quick tour through the agency’s body of work is nothing short of a counterculture reunion –
The rudest awakening came with W&K’s cleverest of schemes: in May 1999, with labor scandals still hanging over the swoosh, the agency approached Ralph nader – the consumer-rights movement’s most powerful leader and a folk hero for his attacks on multinational corporations – and asked him to do a Nike ad. The idea was simple: Nader would get $25,000 for holding up an Air 120 sneaker and saying, “another shameless attempt by Nike to sell shoes.” A letter sent to Nader’s office from Nike headquarters explained that “what we are asking is for Ralph, as the country’s most prominent consumer advocate, to take a light-hearted jab at us. This is a very Nike-like thing to do in our ads.” Nader, never known for being light of heart, would only say, “Look at the gall of those guys.”
