The Anti-Advertising Agency » media

In Paris, an anti-ad insurgency – Los Angeles Times

Steve Lambert — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 13:00:43 +0000

Reporting from Paris — Over the centuries, the French have cultivated the fine art of rebellion. The list of targets encompasses tyrants, wars, colonialism and, above all, capitalism in its many manifestations. The latest enemy may seem unlikely: billboards.

The Dismantlers, as a nationwide group of anti-ad crusaders call themselves, aren’t violent or loud or clandestine. In fact, they invite the police to protest rallies where they deface signs. With a copywriter’s flair, one of their slogans warns: “Attention Avert your eyes from ads: You risk being very strongly manipulated.” The goal of the Dismantlers is to get arrested, argue the righteousness of their cause in court and, you guessed it, gain publicity.
Read more: In Paris, an anti-ad insurgency – Los Angeles Times - thanks Chris

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Obsessive Stephen Colbert Disorder

Anne Elizabeth Moore — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:00:19 +0000

We’re supposed to have viewed Stephen Colbert’s “Dr. Pepper Interview” with Lucas Conley, author of Obsessive Branding Disorder, as a hilarious detournement on the subject of Conley’s book, our nation’s ever-increasing need for brand mentions. But all I got out of the interview—yes, difficult to parse through all the hilarious jokes about brands, ha ha—was that Conley thinks companies should cease striving for lifestyle status and stick with branding only what they are also good at producing. And he gave several examples—by brand name, even without Colbert’s prompting—to back up his theory.

How is a call for proper branding actually going to change the supposed illness from which our nation suffers? If anyone can tell me, great, cause I have no interest in reading the book to find out.

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Dangerous Business

Anne Elizabeth Moore — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:17:24 +0000

Now, I like your freedom of speech as much as the next gal—technically more, probably—but i’m not about to get all up in arms because some ad industry blog has been receiving death threats for discussing a campaign that links government-backed violence, human rights violations, the Olympic Games, and the Chinese government. Especially when journalists, activists, and the Swedish Red Cross have been suffering worse, for years.

The alleged death threats were aimed at “a beyond-a-blog, commercial-laden delirium of heaven and hell for advertising addicts around the world, gossips about advertising stunts and marketing mishaps. The latest advertising news from a creative point of view served fresh daily since 2000″—barf—that builds buzz around such brilliant campaigns as Saatchi and Saatchi’s hilarious and spot-on campaign about human trafficking—in which humans were actually advertised for sale! My god the genius! It’s funny because it’s true! And also because it might have appeared first in the Onion!

The ads, for a Swedish Red Cross campaign, depict citizens being beaten, choked, attacked, and otherwise threatened by allegedly Chinese enforcers. Chinese ad enthusiasts and death-threateners, however, charge that the abusers are actually Nepalese. The images are accompanied by the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games logos. Some can be seen here, but because the charming ad blog above has imprinted its own logo on the images, I’m not going to repost. Human rights violations and abuses of activists and journalists have been tied directly to the 2008 Olympic Games.

Apparently the Swedish Red Cross tired of the death threats and opted to remove the images from its own site. Because, one assumes, the Swedish Red Cross isn’t surprised when violating long-held Chinese mandates restricting press freedom results in death threats. But apparently, the ad world is.

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Facebook Business Solutions

“We’re All Going To Die,” Industry Laments . . . Again

Anne Elizabeth Moore — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:44:59 +0000

An article in yesterday’s AdAge titled “Ad Skipping? Just Wait. It’s Going to Get Worse.” bemoans last week’s US Court of Appeals ruling that would allow—oh, it’s bad—”network DVR” technology, essentially allowing viewers at home to watch whatever they want on cable, whenever they want to watch it, without buying any fancy new equipment or boxes.

(This used to be considered a right, noncommercial media, on the theory that broadcasts took place in public space, and needed to give back to the public good because of it. That’s recently been abandoned, notably by NPR and PBS, because it’s not profitable.)

The danger, of course—or as we at-home viewers like to call it, the benefit—is that you can skip every ad.

Oh, but that’s not how the ad industry sees it. Barely concealing threats to the “media conglomerates” that, the story raves, make such excellent use of ad revenue now, and referring to the technology as “invasive”, “penetrative”, and “great cause for concern,” the article goes on to provide some of the most hilarious quotes I’ve ever read outside of a joke book.

“Consumers, now accustomed to watching shows as they wish,” the piece contends, suffer from an “ad-skipping addiction.”

John Senior, a partner at Oliver Wyman, seems baffled. “They don’t want to watch commercials, but they won’t pay to not watch commercials.”

Oh. My. God.: How are they supposed to make a buck if we refuse to give them any?

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