Announcing the winner of the Anti-Advertising Agency Foundation For Freedom Award; Sarah Gibble!
Read Sarah’s tale of how she was sucked into the advertising industry vortex and how she escaped! Continue reading →
Other Options: Panel discussion + AAAFFF Awards Ceremony
Eyebeam
September 19, 7PM
540 W. 21st St.
Panelists: Josh Greene, Service-Works; Geraldine Juárez, Tanda Foundation; Joanna Spitzner, JS Foundation. Moderated by Abigail Satinsky and Ben Schaafsma of InCUBATE and Sunday Soup Granting Fund.
Followed by the Anti-Advertising Agency (Anne Elizabeth Moore and Eyebeam senior fellow Steve Lambert) Foundation for Freedom 2008 Award ceremony and after-party, just in time for New York Ad Week!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Official Foundation for Freedom Press Release September 12, 2008 Contact: Anne Elizabeth Moore and Steve Lambert – FFF (at) antiadvertisingagency.com
ANNOUNCING: ONE LUCKY FORMER AD PRO TO TAKE HOME GIANT CHECK FROM THE 2008 ANTI-ADVERTISING AGENCY FOUNDATION FOR FREEDOM AWARD CELEBRATION Gala Event on September 19 to Grant One Lucky Ad Industry Creative Freedom, Giant Check
CHICAGO— Anti-Advertising Agency Foundation For Freedom (AAAFFF) Award judges today finalized their selection in the extended process of choosing the single applicant most worthy of the 2008 AAAFFF award money, giant novelty check, and September 19th celebration.
The ceremony in New York City, will kick off “Advertising Week” by honoring the freedom of one of the most forward-thinking creative professionals in the US, recently released from the extensive bonds of giant paychecks, daily deception, and constant commercial pressure to bring in ever-higher profits for products and services increasingly losing performance power. This single honoree will receive all accrued funds—currently at $700—integrity, the opportunity to network with the most brilliant noncommercial creatives working today, and a giant novelty check. Additionally, co-founders Steve Lambert and Anne Elizabeth Moore will sing a special song to the honoree while wearing fancy attire.
“I can’t believe the number of applicants we received,” Anti-Advertising Agency’s CEO Steve Lambert states. “After all, we’re only offering $700! Who knew so many advertisers still cared first and foremost about creativity, service, and the deplorable state of the nation?”
The Friday evening gala will celebrate one lucky former ad pro’s future in noncommercial creativity and offer networking opportunities with working artists and potential artistic funders.
“Our original goals, to respond to the increasing commercialization of public space, human relationships, journalism and art by decreasing the number of individuals working in the advertising, marketing, and PR industries, were certainly about creating an environment where the relevance of advertising in a tanking economy would be questioned,” AAAFFF Executive Director Anne Elizabeth Moore states.
“But we never expected that we would also find love—the love of former ad pros for their fellow countrymen,” Moore continues.
The fund is seeded with hard-earned cash from creative endeavors, initiated by Lambert and Moore. The co-founders also judged the applications and chose the honoree for the September 19 gala. Hundreds of individuals across the country have donated to the fund, expressing a strong desire to decrease commercialization of the public sphere in any way possible.
Further donations—financial and non-financial—will be encouraged and accepted up until the event date of September 19.
Advertisers! Marketers! And PR People!
We here at AAAFFF HQ have received many late-coming queries as regards the 2008 Anti-Advertising Agency Foundation For Freedom Award—and our deadline is only one week away!
Therefore, I, the Executive Director of the AAAFFF, will attempt to answer the most frequent of these asked questions, to save you necessary minutes that could otherwise be spent hatching your getaway scheme.
We will accept your application form, when complete, via email. However, all essay questions must be responded to in full, and additional materials (CV; Pay stub or business card from previous job or confirmed and dated registration as a college major in the field of advertising, marketing, or PR; and proof of new occupation or confirmed and dated registration in a college major unrelated to advertising or PR) must be submitted via PDF by midnight September 1, 2008 to the email address: FFF (at) antiadvertisingagency dot com.
You are required to leave your position or all freelancing gigs in corporate advertising and while we do not require that we are BCCed on your letter of resignation, we will look kindly upon it.
If your pet has starred in a pet food commercial, but has never been directly employed by an advertising, marketing, or PR firm, your pet is not eligible for the 2008 AAAFFFA. If your pet is currently a marketing manager or ad pro in some other capacity, you must complete the application form in full on their behalf, and provide proof that the animal is willing to leave his or her position. Do not leave the application to your dog or cat! Animals are notoriously bad at completing award applications in a timely manner.
If your plans for the $700 prize money are really cool, please outline them in detail.
Our judges look kindly upon flattery, as well as gifts and event invitations. If your plans for the $700 prize money are that cool, you should invite us to the opening, celebration, or event. That’s just good manners, but we also love a good party.
No, it is not too late to donate money, skills training workshops, or frequent flier miles to the 2008 AAAFFFA. Just click here for more information.
Further information about our September 19 gala event first announced here will be forthcoming. Unfortunately, the gala event is for applicants only. If you wish to attend, you will have to complete an application.
Applications are available here.
If you have any other questions, feel free to contact us.
We know you’re probably thinking it’s better to stick with your cushy job in advertising, marketing, or PR. Sure, you’re saying to yourself, there’s more you’d like to do with your life, more you had hoped for, but advertising pays the bills. There’s a retirement program, and they have a fridge with free sodas.
We here at the AAAFFF did some research on second careers. What if Albert Einstein stuck it out with his job as a patent clerk? If Billie Holiday remained a maid who hummed while she worked, or Duke Ellington stayed a peanut vendor at Washington Senators’ games ‘till the day he died? I’m sure Henry Rollins would still be a great manager at Baskin Robbins. And if anarchist/feminist Emma Goldman had been able to keep shoving all her misgivings deep down inside, maybe one day she’d have made manager at that garment factory. Henry Miller, it is rumored, gave up fantastic benefits (the fresh air!) when he left the bike-messenger industry. Barbara Walters, one of the most respected journalists in our lifetimes, was once a publicist. Che Guevara could easily have retired on his income as a doctor.
But where would we be then? And where will we be if you don’t leave your job?
Clearly, the time to act is now. There are only two weeks left to apply for the 2008 AAAFFFA, and to make it just a tiny bit easier for you, we’ve created yet another handy tool for your personal use: The Clip ’n’ Send Letter of Resignation!
To use the Clip ’n’ Send Letter of Resignation, simply replace the text in all-caps with your own information, and send along to your boss, supervisor or HR department.
Don’t forget to BCC the FFF at AntiAdvertisingAgency dot com, and insert flattering comments about us for especial consideration!
YOU
YOUR STREET ADDRESS
YOUR CITY STATE AND ZIP CODE
YOUR COUNTRY
THE DATE
THE ADVERTISING, MARKETING, OR PR FIRM WHERE YOU WORK
STREET ADDRESS
CITY STATE ZIP
COUNTRY
Dear Sirs or Madams,
I am writing today to post my two-week’s notice at [YOUR FIRM OR AGENCY].
I can no longer bear to apply my problem-solving skills, creative flair, wit, charm, and hard-won integrity to increase the sales of [HOUSEHOLD CLEANERS/MEDICAL DEVICES/CARDBOARD BOXES] and [ITEMS OF NATIONAL DEFENSE/SODA/ATHLETIC WEAR]. I do appreciate that your excessive dedication to consumer awareness of such goods and services has inspired me lo these many [YEARS/MONTHS/DAYS] and wish you good luck in pursuit of your goal of [X-NUMBER OF DOLLARS SALES INCREASE OVER PREVIOUS YEARS/MARKETPLACE DOMINATION/YEAR-END BONUS LARGE ENOUGH FOR SUMMER HOME DOWN PAYMENT]. I feel sure, somehow, that you can achieve your dreams.
Still, you will have to do so without me. I am a brilliant thinker flush with creative talent interested in changing the world—not changing what it buys. I’m leaving your employ, therefore, and pursuing work [AS A JOURNALIST/IN THE SOCIAL SERVICE SECTOR/OF MY OWN CREATION]. By divorcing my creative output from commercial interests, I am reinvesting in the notion that one person can make a difference. Without corporate backing. These are, after all, the principles that [YOUR COUNTRY] was founded on: freedom and self-determination.
Which brings me to my point. In leaving this position, and the exploitative industry in which it is housed, I am eligible for an exciting new funding initiative from the Anti-Advertising Agency’s Foundation For Freedom. By filling out their AAAFFFA Kit—a short, enjoyable form I urge you to download now—I put myself in the running to:
1) Win accrued funds in the realm now of $700; 2) Be honored at a gala event on September 19; 3) Network with like-minded noncommercial creatives working for real social change; and 4) Receive a giant novelty check. Giant!
The cubicle-mates I will leave behind in two short weeks can attest to my deep-seated and long-held desires to be awarded a giant novelty check. They will be less likely to admit—although we discuss it frequently during smoke breaks, coffee runs, and at the bar—their own deep-seated jealousies that I will be finally leaving this inhumane environment and long-held rage built up by corrupting the public trust for personal profit.
So as eager as I am to leave your employ, I have no desire to discontinue our working relationship. Please, won’t you join me in going after a creative world-changing work environment unhindered by obsessive profit tallies, occasionally dishonest claims, and regular violations of state and federal laws?
I look forward to working with you.
Sincerely, [YOUR NAME]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Official Foundation for Freedom Press Release
July 29, 2008
Contact: Anne Elizabeth Moore and Steve Lambert – FFF (at) antiadvertisingagency.com
ANNOUNCING THE 2008 ANTI-ADVERTISING AGENCY FOUNDATION FOR FREEDOM AWARD CELEBRATION
September 19 Soiree to Celebrate One Lucky Ad Industry Creative Freedom, Giant Check
CHICAGO—The long-awaited Anti-Advertising Agency Foundation For Freedom (AAAFFF) Award Ceremony, to honor the freedom of one of the most forward-thinking and creative professionals in the US, is set for September 19 at an undisclosed location in New York City. The private celebration will be open to all AAAFFF applicants and one single honoree, who will receive all accrued funds, integrity, the opportunity to network with noncommercial creatives, and a giant novelty check.
AAAFFF Award Audience
The Friday evening gala will kick off one lucky former ad pro’s future in noncommercial creativity. “We’re really excited to start working with her or him,” AAAFFF Executive Director Moore states. “The creative talents of these individuals have so many immediate and tangible applications: tamping the escalation toward another war with Iran, advocating for immigrants’ rights, creating health services for veterans, educating our nation’s youth. There’s no end to the amazing work that could be done when we stop focusing on product sales!”
The 2008 AAAFFF Award responds to the increasing commercialization of public space, human relationships, journalism and art by decreasing the number of individuals working in industries that directly support these goals. “We wish we could honor all the former advertisers eager to leave their careers,” states Steve Lambert, CEO of the AAA. “Response to our programming has been overwhelming!”
The fund is seeded with hard-earned cash from creative endeavors, donated by Lambert and AAAFFF Executive Director Anne Elizabeth Moore, who will also judge the applications and chose the honoree for the September 19 gala. Hundreds of individuals across the country have donated to the fund, expressing a strong desire to decrease commercialization of the public sphere in any way possible.
Further donations—financial and non-financial—are encouraged and accepted.
Application forms are available now at the Anti-Advertising Agency’s website, and must be typed and postmarked September 1, 2008.
# # #
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 and economic impacts of advertising; inspire problem-solving methods focused on the most important issues facing the real world; and shine a light on the influence that advertising, media, and marketing industries have on dwindling public space, atrophying human relationships, and the destruction of democracy.
OK, really there is nothing for sale–we’re a noncommercial enterprise in a noncommercial space!–but, sadly, the Foundation For Freedom Temporary World Headquarters at Mess Hall is coming to a close.
We’d like to thank you for your dedicated support and attendance during the last month. You’ve helped us accomplish:
So, thanks! We couldn’t have done it without you! But there are still ways to be involved:
And, of course:
(Applications are due September 1.)
Thanks so much for your support of our important mission. Feel free to keep in touch!
Sincerely,
Anne Elizabeth Moore
Executive Director
Foundation For Freedom
If you run a website or blog, chances are your email inbox is filled to brimmin’ with offers from friendly advertisers willing to allow you a once- (or maybe twice!) in-a-lifetime opportunity to display their content on your site. Sometimes, sure, they offer to pay for the marketing work you’re doing on their behalf, but sometimes not! Sometimes, they just want to exchange links!
Now, you’re probably aware that you’re under no obligation to respond to such requests for free or underpaid labor—unless you’re really desperate for money, in which case I’d start billing the agencies the industry standard rate of $45 per hour—and saying “no thanks” can get a little old.
So here at the AAAFFF, we’ve developed a simple tool—a form letter, really—to respond to such offers. And instead of requesting the advertisers give us free or underpaid labor, we’re offering them the Anti-Advertising Agency Foundation For Freedom Award!
We’re posting our letter here for you to cut, paste, and send. Feel free to personalize it—and let us know how it works!
Dear Advertiser / Marketer / PR Person,
So great to hear from you!
Thank you for your kind offer to host your content on my site, in either a paid or volunteer capacity. Surely I will regret turning it down, because it certainly does seem like a fantastic opportunity!
Please don’t feel rejected. There are still several online venues available for you to legally and ethically pursue the wider audience you feel your product, event, or service deserves—without the trouble of chasing down individual bloggers or site owners! Two of the more popular are the Yellow Pages and Craigslist. Many local newspapers also offer affordable rates you may wish to look into. (One helpful hint I like to pass along is, if you are surfing the net and come across a site you like, check to see if they offer ad rates, usually noted by a link marked “advertising”!)
Maybe, though, this email comes at a bad time for you. Perhaps the legal and ethical problems plaguing advertising today have begun to gnaw. Likely, you always wanted to do something more fulfilling and creative with your life—and I can help!
My friends at the Anti-Advertising Agency Foundation For Freedom just might pay you cash money, throw you a big party in New York City, and award you a giant novelty check if you quit your job!
Plus, they’ll help you network with creatives in noncommercial fields and assist you in putting your talents to good use to help solve real-world problems! The application is easy, and you have plenty of time—it’s not due until September 1! Just download it here.
Or perhaps the problem runs deeper than that, and the legal and ethical issues the ad industry raises simply do not concern you. I completely understand. Maybe you’d be more comfortable making a donation, or forwarding the application link along to your colleagues in the industry. Now could be the time for you to weed out a bit of the competition!
Well, thanks again—It’s been great talking with you!
Sincerely,
[YOUR NAME HERE]
The co-founders of the Anti-Advertising Agency Foundation For Freedom, Steve Lambert, CEO of the Anti-Advertising Agency, and Anne Elizabeth Moore, Executive Director of the Foundation For Freedom, present four FREE workshops this weekend at our oFFFices to celebrate your personal independence from oppressive working conditions!
1:00pm Redefining Your Skillset: Putting Together a Great Resume for the Non-Profit Sector In this 50 minute workshop, Anne and Steve provide tips and training on relanguaging your advertising skillset toward the needs of social justice organizations. Spent years designing cigarette campaigns? We’ll show you how to turn that into a valuable tool for the American Cancer Society. Please bring current resume and red pen.
2:00pm How to Find Good-Paying Jobs in Public Service Steve and Anne will lead you by hand through the most effective steps to locate, apply for—and get!—a sustainable job working for change. In just 50 minutes! Bring a pad of paper and a pencil.
3:00pm Telling Your Account Manager No: How To Refuse to Work On Ethically Bereft Ad Campaigns Want to stay in advertising for now? This 50 minute workshop will provide you with all the information you need to back away from the most damaging of commercial campaigns. Please note: we will still try to convince you to quit your job. Prepare to role play!
4:00pm Letter of Resignation Writing Seminar Write a clear, decisive, and hilarious letter of resignation to end your career in advertising without losing friends—Anne and Steve will show you how in just 50 minutes! Bring stamps and professional letterhead.
Applications for the 2008 AAAFFFA—the AAAFFFA Kit—will also be available for your convenience. As always, our workshops are free, but donations to the AAAFFF are encouraged. All workshops will be held at our oFFFice at Mess Hall: 6932 N Glenwood, Chicago, just across from the Morse stop on the Red Line. Please arrive ten minutes early and note each workshop requirement carefully, and feel free to sign up in advance by emailing FFF@antiadvertisingagency.com! We will also be making individual appointments with select ad pros—let us know when you’re available!
Our first AAAFFF action was a smashing success! Forgoing the Frisbee for a better-matching RWB football, AAAFFF consultant Sarah Kavage and ED Anne Elizabeth Moore spent sometime getting to know our constituency with a rousing game of catch in front of Leo Burnett in downtown Chicago. (More photos here.)
Join AAAFFF Executive Director Anne Elizabeth Moore and filmmaker Franklin Lopez at the Hideout on the Solstice to watch a charming and hilarious batch of brilliant little anticorporate films*. It’s all designed to bring you, dear reader, back into the fold of independent cultural production. Won’t you join us? It’s just one night.
i’m doing this to win your heart
doors 7p saturday june 21 2008, the hideout
$7: a submedia.tv / AAAFFF benefit
*Seriously. Jo Dery makes crazy cute animations about housing rights; Sami Muillenberg of Reel Grrls interviews fellow teens about media consolidation; and Franklin’s “Why I Love Shopping From Big Corporations,” has actually prompted tears. Plus: The AAAFFFPPP.
The National Conference on Media Reform is in Minneapolis this weekend, and I’m all over it. Come say hi, or if you’re not going to the conference, stop by Arise! bookstore on Sunday night for a Foundation For Freedom PowerPoint Presentation (FFFPPP). (And yes, no real column again. Next week, devoted readers!)
June 7: Panel Discussion: There Is No Media Justice Without Women (NCMR) 11:15 a.m., Free with conference admission. With moderator Jennifer Pozner, Women In Media & News (WIMN); DeAnne Cuellar, Texas Media Empowerment Project; Shireen Mitchell, Digital Sistas;and Betty Yu, Manhattan Neighborhood Network.
June 7: Film Appearance: In Our Own Voices: Youth Making Media (NCMR) 2:30 pm, Free with conference admission. Young Reel Grrrls filmmaker Sami Muilenberg interviewed me for Seattle Generation of Consolidation, a short documentary exploring the impact of media consolidation on news content and how this consolidated news affects youth as both viewers and young media makers.
June 7: Book Signing: Anne Elizabeth Moore, Unmarketable (NCMR) 4 pm, Free with conference admission. I sign all books like this: “Valued Ebay Customer, Please enjoyed this treasured read from my personal collection. It’s made me quite happy over the days / months / decades (PICK ONE) it’s been in my possession, although not quite as happy as the financial benefit of releasing it to you at this time. Perhaps it will even make its way into your permanent collection, and possibly also be read in entirety. Regardless, your support of my credit card bill / drug habit / mortgage (PICK ONE) is heartwarming. Sincerely, ______________.” Then you have to personalize it. Also, I do not limit the books that I sign to those I have written. Bring anything by!
June 8: Unmarketable Reading, FFF PPP (Arise! Bookstore) 7 p.m., Free. Co-presented by Parents for Ethical Marketing.
I’ll plan to update these regularly, but for now, here are just a few of the comments that have come across my desk at the AAAFFF since taking over the ED position:
“I have worked for the past 4 years (since I graduated from a very prestigious culinary school) doing R&D for a food manufacturer . . . Boy, throwing away 5,000 pre-packaged hamburger buns when they don’t get used is even more egregious when you wake up to CNN telling you that people are rioting in Haiti and Egypt because they can’t afford a loaf of bread. Poor people are so silly. I’m all ready to quit my job so that I can devote my time to the theatre which is my true love . . .” .” —Midwestern Ad Man
“Today, after my job, I was walking to my apartment and felt sad, because, after a good weekend, my work today was a #%$# (censured). It’s not life to live, 10 hours and only business, business. Some people want to sell agriculture machines and technology and I spend my time on it?” —Brasilia Ad Man
“Throughout my studies I’ve found myself questioning if advertising is the right industry for me. I’m in love with the creative process, but not as interested in the products it’s being centered around.”—New York Ad Woman
“[The AAAFFF is] enough to make me wish I could leave advertising all over again. . . . I left advertising, but I never got a GIANT NOVELTY CHECK! I didn’t even get a normal-sized severance package. I guess I did get a pretty nice unemployment income for a while. Advertising is inherently evil, though, I am glad I am not doing that anymore. It is better to starve righteously.” —Minneapolis Painter
“We’ve seen your website at http://antiadvertisingagency.com/projects/foundation-for-freedom and we love it! We see that your traffic rank is 602777 and your link popularity is 26. Also, you have been online since 19/06/2004. With that kind of traffic, we will pay you up to $4,800/month to advertise our links on your website. If you’re interested, read our terms from this page: [website deleted for privacy concerns].” — Internet Ad Man
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.
# # #
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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form action=”https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr” method=”post”>
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.
Hey! I’m doin’ some stuff!
Friday April 25, 6 pm: Wexner Center, 15th and High St., Columbus OH Unmarketable reading and 2008 AAAFFFA application drive (see reviews below)
Friday April 25, 8 pm: Sporeprint Infoshop, 172 E 5th Avenue, Columbus, OH Unmarketable slide talk featuring Pamela Anderson (see reviews below)
Sunday April 27, 7 pm: New World Resource Center, 1300 North Western Ave., Chicago, IL Unmarketable reading (see reviews below)
Review Excerpts
“Distinctly more radical than merely protesting against consumerism: [Unmarketable offers] a total rejection of the competitive ethos that drives capitalist culture.” —LA Times
“Sharp and valuable muckraking.” —Time Out New York
“What sells [this event] is the opportunity to see Pamela Anderson without her clothes . . . a lot.” —IMDB
