Page 31 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

10 | Advert s ng and Persuas on

adBusters and “Culture JaMMing”
Founded in 1989 by Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz in Vancouver, Canada, Adbusters is an
anti-consumerist organization that has mixed education, research, activism, and art to
complain about advertising’s many excesses. Adbusters is particularly well known for its
parodic advertisements that mock the bravado, false promises, and absurd logic of ads.
Thus, for instance, taking aim at Camel cigarettes’ animated character Joe Camel, a series
of Adbusters ads follow “Joe Chemo,” showing him hospitalized by his addiction. Another
parodic ad for Calvin Klein’s Obsession depicts, in classic black-and-white photography
style, a young woman bent over a toilet bowl, offering the suggestion of a more sinis-
ter “obsession” with thinness fueled by Calvin Klein ads. Adbusters publishes a reader-
supported magazine, and has also been instrumental in launching the annual Buy Nothing
Day and TV Turnoff Week.
Adbusters and its fellow culture-jammers aim to rob advertising signs, symbols, and lo-
gos of their power, and to implore citizens to read ads critically. But in a sign of how invested
media corporations are in pursuing advertising by making their messages ad-friendly, com-
mercial broadcasters in both the United States and Canada have refused to play Adbusters’s
anti-ads. Thus, other culture-jamming groups have taken to “repurposing” outdoor adver-
tising and to reclaiming public space, using pranks, anti-ads, and media events to “jam”
advertising. One long-standing group, the San Francisco Billboard Liberation Front, adds
critical commentary, often amusing and witty, to billboards. For example, a McDonald’s
ad depicting a breakfast sandwich with the tag line, “Suddenly you’re a morning person,”
in the Downtown Berkeley BART stop was changed to read “Suddenly you’re a nothing
person.”

sTEaLTh sTraTEgiEs

As the fast-moving, highly competitive world of advertising seeks new
media formats and persuasive strategies to promote product brands, corporate
image, and commercial icons, a variety of edgy advertising practices under an
assortment of titles have emerged in recent years. From brand buzz, to seeding,
stealth, undercover, guerilla and renegade, these practices are designed to enter
into the consumer’s consciousness just under the critical radar that recognizes
advertising as persuasive communication. These undercover formats have an
important shared characteristic; their promotional aspect is not revealed and
they lack recognizable “sponsorship.” To the hip new marketers, sponsorship
has become a dirty word. Unlike product placement and other hybrids of com-
mercial media, these persuasions are often interpersonal and take place in both
public and private places. For example, a man on the street asks a passerby to
take his picture. As the interaction proceeds, opportunity to promote the cam-
era arises. The passerby would be surprised to find that the man has actually
been hired to sell the camera. In another example, a person may sit down at a
bar and order a drink within earshot of others, then strike up a conversation.