Co-option (If You Can't Beat 'Em...) - The Art of the Prank

May 9, 2008January 15, 2019

Pranks as Tools for Propaganda

From New Right Australia / New Zealand Web site:

The New Right is organised throughout Europe and beyond. We are strongly opposed to liberalism, democracy and egalitarianism and fight to restore the eternal values and principles that have become submerged beneath the corrosive tsunami of the modern world. The New Right has an interest in the various strands of thought connected with the Traditionalists, the Revolutionary Conservatives; the Nouvelle Droit; and the Eurasianists.

Humour as a Weapon
by Andreas Gaust
New Right Australia / New Zealand
May 8, 2008

This article has been researched and compiled for the purposes of educating New Right and N-A activists in the use of humour as a political weapon. There is a paranoid feeling amongst many on the New Right that the mass media is our greatest enemy. Not so. This article looks at the ways in which activists can use and manipulate the media, rather than the other way around.

As an example: mention the 1932 opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge to any older Australian, and the first image that will spring to their mind is a man on horseback, galloping forward to slash the ribbon with his sword, before the “˜official” representative could get to it. The swordsman was a member of a political group called the New Guard. And while this stunt was not especially humorous, it was certainly eye-catching – it remains in the mass mind to this day. In that same city in 2007, the crew of television show The Chaser made world headlines when they infiltrated the APEC forum (one of them dressed as Osama bin Laden), making a complete mockery of the forum”s expensive security measures.

In general, the media doesn”t give coverage to alternative politics (the recent 9/11 Truth Forum in Sydney was completely ignored, even though one of the speakers was a prominent Japanese MP). But “˜fringe” views can get past the editors if they are presented by means of some humorous prank or stunt. Continue reading “Pranks as Tools for Propaganda”

April 6, 2008January 15, 2019

Checkbook Culture Jamming

Update to our March 28, 2008 post “Skullphone to Clear Channel: Can You Hear Me Now?” From Wired.com, via The Anti-Advertising Agency:

Clear Channel: Digital Billboards Rented, Not Hacked

The Los Angeles street artist known as Skullphone managed to get his iconic skull-holding-a-cellphone image to display on 10 prominent digital billboards throughout Los Angeles last week — leading some blogs to report that he’d hacked into the signs.

Alas, Clear Channel Outdoors, which owns the billboards, says no. “He paid to get it up,” says spokeswoman Jennifer Gery. “It only ran for two days.”

Update: Clear Channel’s Tony Alwin is unhappy about the hacking rumors. “The advertisement was bought under the assumption that it was art that was in an art show,” he says. “Any claims about hacking into our systems is false. It’s a lie, even.”

March 17, 2008January 15, 2019

Obay

From Alma’s Soulfood blog… Culture jamming goes mainstream:

Mysterious ads for a product called “Obay” have been plastered all over Toronto for the last couple of weeks. Everyone has been guessing what they could be about — a culture jamming ad that critiques the overmedication of youth? Ads for some kind of self-help system? Or just a joke?

Their point was revealed this week (you can read about it here and here). I wasn’t too surprised to find out that they were done by Smith Roberts + Co., the same advertising firm we are working with on the United Church of Canada’s WonderCafe campaign. I knew there was something familiar about this twisted approach to marketing!

February 8, 2008January 15, 2019

Guerilla Marketing: DK New Yuck

DKNY Guerilla Marketing Goes from Poor Taste to Trash, by John Del Signore at Gothamist:

Curious about the fate of all those orange bikes with the DKNY website that were locked up around town? The ones the police didn”t cart away (some were illegally chained to trees) are being picked clean for spare parts. The tone deaf Fashion Week publicity stunt was presented by DKNY as an effort to promote cycling in New York, and the company did help raise awareness by, uh, distributing bicycle maps in their stores. Oh, and their website for the campaign has a photo of models riding a bike, though they”re too cool for helmets, of course.

The neon orange DKNY bikes drew heat from cyclists because the aesthetic is all-too-similar to the nationwide “Ghost Bike” campaign, which memorializes killed cyclists by locking an all-white bicycle near the scene of the accident. In an email sent out earlier, a DKNY rep wrote “we are very sorry if our well-intentioned “˜Explore Your City” program offended anyone.” That’s touching, but ‘sorry’ doesn’t get these eyesores off the sidewalks.

DKNY has not responded to our questions about when the bikes will be removed, but it seems others are doing the job one piece at a time.

January 7, 2008January 15, 2019

Unmarketable, by Anne Elizabeth Moore

From The New Press Web site:

Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing, and the Erosion of Integrity by Anne Elizabeth Moore

For years the do-it-yourself (DIY)/punk underground has worked against the logic of mass production and creative uniformity, disseminating radical ideas and directly making and trading goods and services. But what happens when the underground becomes just another market? What happens when the very tools that the artists and activists have used to build word of mouth are coopted by corporate America? What happens to cultural resistance when it becomes just another marketing platform?

Unmarketable examines the corrosive effects of corporate infiltration of the underground. Activist and author Anne Elizabeth Moore takes a critical look at the savvy advertising agencies, corporate marketing teams, and branding experts who use DIY techniques to reach a youth market””and at members of the underground who have helped forward corporate agendas through their own artistic, and occasionally activist, projects.

Covering everything from Adbusters to Tylenol”s indie-star-studded Ouch! campaign, Unmarketable is a lively, funny, and much-needed look at what”s happening to the underground and what it means for activism, commerce, and integrity in a world dominated by corporations.

Anne Elizabeth Moore is the co-editor of Punk Planet, the Best American Comics series editor, and the author of Hey, Kidz! Buy This Book: A Radical Primer on Corporate and Governmental Propaganda and Artistic Activism for Short People. She has written for Bitch, the Chicago Reader, In These Times, The Onion, The Progressive, and Chicago Public Radio WBEZ”s radio program 848. She lives in Chicago.

To get more of a sense of what this book is about, check out Rob Walker’s very interesting interview with Anne Elizabeth Moore from his blog Murketing.