AAAFFF up 35% in first 2 weeks

Scrappy artists, students, and regular folk open wallets to reach out to ad pros

CHICAGO—Only 2 weeks after the Anti-Advertising Agency Foundation For Freedom announced its new giving campaign, donations have come in from all over the country, raising the pot offered to one lucky creative to $670—and she or he will still receive a giant check!

The 2008 Anti-Advertising Agency Foundation For Freedom Award (AAAFFFA), designed to oust advertising, marketing, and PR creatives from their careers, received a healthy boost from young artists, activists, and everyday people in New York, Chicago, and Columbus, Ohio eager to help the organization in the mission to decrease commercialization of public space, human relationships, journalism and art by removing a single individual from an industry that directly supports these goals.

“We call it ‘reverse robin-hooding’,” AAAFFF Executive Director Anne Elizabeth Moore explains. “We’re not stealing, we’re asking. Also, in a way, I guess we’re giving to the rich instead of the poor. But we’re doing it for the right reasons.”

Steve Lambert, CEO of the AAA, agrees. “This display of generosity is just the first step. More valuable than the money we’re giving one marketing professional is the donation they’re giving us; by leaving advertising and working for the common good.” The AAAFFF also accepts non-financial donations.

College students have been moved to donate by the AAAFFF’s accepting applications from fellow students changing majors from advertising, marketing, or public relation to social services, art, journalism, creative writing or similar endeavors. “This award can make a substantial difference for a college student,” Moore explains, “helping to pay for additional classes to complete a new major and the extra text books required. We’re here to make a real difference.”

An upcoming “testimonials” section of the AAA site will help inform students who currently believe marketing is a glamorous world of cash and creativity and provide them with gritty, real-life stories from jaded professionals in the industry.

“We thought advertisers themselves would be all over this. It’s the perfect way to oust a hated adversary and better the chances of total ad-world domination,” Lambert states. “Who knew regular people hated advertising this much?”

Application forms are available now at the Anti-Advertising Agency’s website, and must be typed and postmarked September 1, 2008. Students are urged to plan ahead, and prepare their paperwork over the summer.

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The mission of the Anti-Advertising Agency Foundation For Freedom is to bring the best and brightest former ad pros together once a year; inspire young people to leave the craft; focus the industry and public at large on the profoundly negative social justice impacts of advertising; inspire problem-solving methods focused on the most important issues facing the real world; and shine a light on the influence the advertising, media, and marketing industries has on dwindling public space, atrophying human relationships, and the destruction of democracy.

Donate to AAAFFF online via PayPal. Please be sure to specify “Anti-Advertising Agency” as the item. Thanks!

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The Anti-Advertising Agency is fiscally sponsored by The Lab. The Lab is a project of The Art Re Grup, Inc., a non-profit organization operating within the meaning of section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions and in-kind donations are fully tax-deductible within the parameters established by current tax law.