If you’ve tuned into the news or walked the streets of Paris within the last couple of days you’ve probably heard of Brandalism. They describe themselves as a “revolt against corporate control of the visual realm” and the “biggest anti-advertising campaign in world history”.
The Brandalism movement.
It’s hard not to agree with these bold statements and what’s even harder is not to admire what Brandalism are doing. As an advertising agency ourselves, one day we could be the victims of a Brandalism campaign. This is just the opinion of one man in an agency who believes that these big corporate companies should care about what (negative) effects they are having on our environment, climate and society. Their most recent stunt, after their 2012 “billboards” and their 2014 “bus stops” projects is aimed at the 21st conference of parties or COP21. What Brandalism has done is quite effectively take aim at the sponsors who believe they are making a difference. These sponsors include Air France and GDF-Suez-Engie. You can see the entire gallery of ads here.
Brandalism take aim at Air France.
The ads, thought up by 82 artists across 19 countries, are placed in bus shelters, taking the place of the companies that Brandalism aren’t all that happy with. The good thing is that the ads themselves don’t look like fake ads. The consumers will actually stop and read the message and the realise that this is satirizing the corporate giants. The COP21 campaign also targets companies who aren’t involved in sponsoring the event. Like the obvious choice of Volkswagen who had the whole emissions scandal thing not so long ago.
Volkswagen was the obvious choice to target.
Brandalism’s similarities.
This whole thing reminds us of Jani Leinonen and the Tony the Tiger campaign (read our blog post here). Jani Leinonen targeted the well-known children’s cereal mascot ‘Tony the Tiger’ basically telling him, and the organisation he represents to grow up and deal with real problems. So that’s our two cents. Not so often you’ll get a person working in an advertising agency openly liking what Brandalism do and why they do it. Let us know your opinions, and we’ll have a nice little discussion.
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