Graffiti vs. Brands

Graffiti artists and Brands have one thing in common, they both would like to be ubiquitous. What happens when graffiti artists start attacking brands' ubiquitous logos? 

The artist attacking these brands is Zevs and his intention is to force the passer by to pay attention and question to these images rather than just letting them slip into our subconscious.

Another graffiti artist attacking advertising here in NYC is Poster Boy, you can read about him here and see his all of his work here. 

Poster Boy slices and mashes 2 or 3 different ads to create a composite image, which still remains brand heavy but adds cheeky irony to it. 

What does this mean for marketers/advertisers? Well we need to be much more cognisant of what media we are buying and where our message will be going. Brands that are socially conscious and accessible for dialogue will get attacked much less than brands that are closed off to 2 way communication and only interested in spreading a message. Social media/application, when done right, can be a great way to foster communication between brands and consumers. A good example is Comcast which was getting attacked for is poor customer service by a rather famous advertising critic, Bob Garfield of Ad Age and On The Media. Comcast started a twitter account in order to be more responsive and to start a dialogue with customers. Marketers need to realize that consumers and advocates have a lot more power to spread their message weather that message is positive or negative is up to the brand.

Enjoy your thanksgiving holiday.