Anti-advertising

In 1977, the year I was born, city dwellers
were subjected to an average of 2,000 ads each day.

While studying graphic design in college I noticed a lot of opportunities for designers revolved around designing advertising. Designing ads trying to sell people things they didn’t need using money they didn’t have did not appeal to me.

Of course, I’m now in marketing and designing ads.

However, the advertising I create is for something I believe in (a small, mission-mobilizing non-profit) and is very targeted advertising, in my opinion, in comparison to much of what Americans are blanketed with on a daily basis. I balk at 99% of television ads. After a sebatical from TV-watching last summer, turning the tube on again and sitting through commercials was truly agonizing. The sponsorship of college football games — not to mention entire college campuses (via Coke or Pepsi contracts), and basically everything else in America — drives me up the wall. It’s not the “Capital One Bowl,” it’s the “Citrus Bowl.”

Is everyone so hard up for cash in this most profitable of American economies that they feel the need to sell every square inch of potential ad space?

Rocketboom chronicled this video today:

The video, titled Light Criticism, is a collaborative effort of The Graffiti Research Lab (GRL) and the Anti-Advertising Agency (AAA). AAA’s website starts out by saying “Advertising is the vandalism of the Fortune 500,” and continues by documenting illegal ads in New York City.

Of course, a lot of advertising is not illegal. And while I am a little wary of the accusation of “vandalism” coming from an organization like GRL, I would not hesitate in referring to a lot of advertising as “aesthetic” vandalism.

In 2007, city dwellers see an average of 5,000 ads a day.