Anti-Ads and Culture Jamming

If you feel completely duped by your friendly neighborhood fast food joints' marketing campaigns, you're not alone. What can you do about it? Besides making smarter choices, perhaps you can follow in the footsteps of the anti-ad/culture jamming movement. The following ads are examples of "anti-ads." Rather than advertise a product, these ads aim to critique, usually very harshly.

The first anti-ads and culture jams were literal rewritings of billboards using spray paint. They were intended to reroute messages in order to create new meaning (Sturken and Cartwright 301). Today, they are a "brand" of their own. Some would argue that the fact that they are a brand that is critiquing another brand for being a brand is problematic--but others think that spreading knowledge and criticism cancels out the branding that is being done. Take a look at these examples and you be the judge:

(photo courtesy of responsiblemarketing.com)

(photo courtesy of media.tricities.com)



(photo courtesy of designious.s3.amazonaws.com)

Are these advertisements successful? Do they follow the same principles of the marketing campaigns we have analyzed thus far? By and large, yes. They use attention-grabbing colors and sans serif fonts; they use proximity, alignment, contrast, and repetition; they use imagery that evokes the brand they are critiquing; two use attention-grabbing graphics and one uses stark simplicity. The design elements we have discussed are present all the same, but the messages that are being encoded and decoded are much different. And how are their intended audiences being interpellated?--I would argue that they are being interpellated as being sheep that have followed and followed and followed until one day stumbling across this advertisement and billboard that hopefully will stop them dead in their tracks. These "anti-ads" are aiming to stun. They aim for social change.

Be an educated consumer from now on. Look at the fine print, and use the principles in this blog to see how marketers are (trying to) manipulate you. Advocate for change. Make a fuss about things that outrage you--maybe bringing these things to light will enforce a movement of global change to some degree.