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Adbusters Media Foundation

Formation	1989
Type	not for profit, anti-consumerist
Website	http://adbusters.org/

Adbusters Media Foundation (called Adbusters or the Media Foundation) is a not-for-profit, anti-consumerist organization founded in 1989 by Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. They describe themselves as "a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age."¹

The foundation publishes Adbusters (ISSN 0847-9097), a 120,000-circulation, reader-supported activist magazine, devoted to numerous political and social causes, many of which are anti-consumerist in nature. Adbusters has also launched numerous international social marketing campaigns,² including Buy Nothing Day³⁴ and TV Turnoff Week⁵ and is known for their "subvertisements" that spoof popular advertisements.⁶⁷

Adbusters has affiliation with sister organizations such as Résistance à l'Aggression Publicitaire⁸ and Casseurs de Pub⁹ in France, Adbusters Norge in Norway, Adbusters Sverige in Sweden and Culture Jammers in Japan.¹⁰¹¹

"Advertisers have taken over everything, and there is a belief that the $450bn-a-year advertising industry may have peaked. It's time for the backlash, and that backlash is the clean mental environment," said founder Kalle Lasn.¹²

Contents 1 Issues 1.1 Media Carta 1.2 Culture jamming 2 Blackspot campaign 2.1 Reception 3 Criticisms 3.1 Commercial style 3.2 Accusations of anti-Semitism 4 See also 5 References 6 External links

Issues

Media Carta

On September 13, 2004, Adbusters filed a lawsuit against six major Canadian television broadcasters (including CanWest Global, Bell Globemedia, CHUM Ltd., and the CBC) for refusing to air Adbusters videos in the television commercial spots that Adbusters attempted to purchase. Most broadcasters refused the commercials for reasons based on business principles. The lawsuit claims that Adbusters' freedom of expression was unjustly limited by the refusals.¹³ There has been talk that if Adbusters wins in Canadian court, they will file similar lawsuits against major U.S. broadcasters that also refused the advertisements.¹⁴

Culture jamming

Adbusters has been described as "the flagship publication of the culture jamming movement".¹⁵ Adbusters is particularly well-known for their culture jamming campaigns,¹⁶ and the magazine often features photographs of politically-motivated billboard or advertisement vandalism sent in by readers. A "culture jammer" is a person who "disrupts the status quo of corporate influence."⁷ It takes the form of clever billboard modifications, google bombing, flash mobs and fake parking tickets for SUVs. The aim of culture jamming is to create a large contrast between the corporate image and the real consequences of corporate behavior. It is a form of protest, so the culture jammer aims to be as public as possible. Adbusters calls it "trickle up" activism, and encourages its readers to do these activities, and honors culture jamming work in the magazine. In the September/October 2001 "Graphic Anarchy" issue, Adbusters were culture jammed themselves in a manner of speaking: they hailed the work of Swiss graphic designer Ernst Bettler as "one of the greatest design interventions on record", unaware that Bettler's story was an elaborate hoax.

Adbusters' 'brand' of culture jamming has its roots in the activities of the situationists and in particular their concept of detournement. This means the "turning around" of received messages so that they communicate meanings at variance with their original intention. In the 'culture jamming' purview this means taking symbols, logos and slogans that are considered to be the vehicles upon which the "dominant discourse" of "late capitalism" is communicated and changing them - frequently in significant but minor ways - to subvert the "monologue of the ruling order" [Debord].

Blackspot campaign

In 2004, the organization began selling shoes which were designed to resemble the Nike-owned Chuck Taylor All-Stars.¹⁷ The name and logo are "open-source";¹⁸ in other words, unencumbered by trademarks.¹⁹ The campaign has been called hypocritical as AdBusters is using the same marketing technique which it denounces other companies for using.¹⁷

The shoes are made primarily from organic hemp and recycled car tires. After an extensive search for anti-sweatshop manufacturers around the world, Adbusters found a small union shop in Portugal.²⁰ The successful sale of more than twenty-five thousand pairs²¹ through an indie distribution network – despite the much higher than average production costs – is intended to demonstrate the hollowness of claims that business necessity sometimes requires the use of sweatshops.²¹

Reception

Heath and Potter's The Rebel Sell suggested that the shoe's existence proves that "no rational person could possibly believe that there is any tension between 'mainstream' and 'alternative' culture."¹⁵ The campaign is an ongoing experiment in alternative branding.

In the June 2008 cover story of BusinessWeek Small Business Magazine, the Blackspot campaign was among three profiled in a piece focusing on "antipreneurs." Two advertising executives were asked to review the campaign for the article's "Ask the Experts" sidebar. Brian Martin of Brand Connections and Dave Weaver of TM Advertising both gave the campaign favorable reviews.

Martin noted that Blackspot was effectively telling consumers, "We know we are marketing to you, and you are as good as we are at this, and your opinion matters," while Weaver stated that "This is not a call to sales of the shoe so much as it is a call to participate in the community of Adbusters by buying the shoe."²²

Criticisms

Commercial style

Adbusters has been criticized for having a style and form that are similar to the media and commercial product that it attacks, that its high gloss design makes the magazine too expensive, and that a style over substance approach is used to mask sub-par content.²³

Heath and Potter also posit that the more alternative or subversive Adbusters feels, the more appealing the Blackspot sneaker will become to the mainstream market. Consumers seek exclusivity and social distinction, which is in contrast to Adbusters' description of the mainstream consumer as a mindless conformist. It is argued that the mainstream market seeks the very same brand of individuality that Adbusters promotes; repression is not a target of the market, thus the Adbusters doctrine is "the true spirit of capitalism."¹⁵

Accusations of anti-Semitism

AdBusters drew accusations of antisemitism after running an article²⁴ that identified many supporters of the Iraq War and the Bush Administration as Jewish and questioned why its potential implications for U.S. Middle East policy were not a subject of debate.²⁵ A list of fifty prominent conservatives was presented, with dots next to the names of those who are Jewish.²⁶

See also

• Indymedia
• Downhill Battle
• Free Culture
• No Logo
• Greenpeace
• Geez Magazine
• StayFree! Magazine

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Adbusting

References

External links

• Official site
  • Japan
  • Norway
  • Sweden
  • Italy: Adbusters | Subvertising.org | Subvertising.noblogs.org
  • Australia
  • Finland

Academic and news sites

• Interview with Kalle Lasn - Founder of Adbusters
• Culture Jammers find magic button for peace and quiet Sun Herald (April 13, 2005) Daniel Dasey.
• Activism for the Mind: Reclaiming Our Cerebral Commons, Kalle Lasn with Natasha Mitchell, ABC Radio National, All in the Mind March 12, 2005.

v • d • e Webby Awards Award Nominee, 1997 award in the category Money Awards Ceremonies 1997 · 1998 · 1999 · 2000 · 2001

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• This page was last modified on 25 December 2008, at 02:27.

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