art not ads

The good people over at the Toronto Public Space Committee have kindly added a link to us on their links page. These guys are the bomb, in their own words they’re “dedicated to celebrating our shared common spaces, and protecting them from political erosion, commercial influence and privatization”. What a great idea, we could do with something similar over here. Check them out and be inspired. It’s great to see that people around the world feel as strongly as we do about our public spaces, and are getting involved in protecting them.

I took a trip into London on the Tube a couple of days ago, and surfaced at Tottenham Court Road. I haven’t been there for a while, so I hadn’t seen the flat-screen TVs that line the escalators. There must be 30 of them, each side. So that’s something like 60 screens projecting animated adverts to the people who are chugging their way up the escalators. The ads change of course, so by the time you’ve reached the top, each screen may have displayed several ads. It’s a long escalator so most people stand rather than walk. I didn’t notice, but I’d be surprised if the ads aren’t timed so that the screens update as you roll past them, to make sure you get optimal exposure to brand names, slogans, and the like.

And of course, Tottenham Court Road isn’t the only place that does this. Waterloo and Liverpool Street stations both have enormous plasma screens, each one several metres across, replete with loudspeakers, projecting advertising and corporate news to the waiting masses.

This all begs the simple question, who gave permission to do this? I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that the London Underground is controlled by the Mayor, and the Mayor represents the people of the city. Have the people of London been clamouring for televisual advertising to brighten their journeys? London Underground wishes to improve its service but it’s not clear whether the people of London were consulted about the options available. It seems that an increasing amount of intrusive advertising is the only solution that has been considered.

If anyone can clear up how this has happened, or if you have any opinions on the subject, I’d love to hear them. Email ANA at . I’ll have to contact the Mayor’s office and the London Underground to get the low-down. Feel free to join in!

PS. If you’re not familiar with “Television, Drug of the Nation ” by the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, check it out, you may like it.

Courtesy of a gracious informant from Contagious Magazine (an advertising and marketing industry magazine).

It seems that even advertising industry insiders are growing sick and tired of the increasingly intrusive nature of advertising, and have dubbed the latest tactics “urban spam”. The pro-industry “trends and lifestyle” website psfk.com offers up some thoughts on the rise of “advertecture” and other intrusive and overwhelming advertising techniques, and even offers a “warning” in the form of this video (hosted by YouTube).

It’s fascinating to find that even advertisers and marketers feel that some tactics overstep the mark. Even some pro-industry publications and organisations are decrying “urban spam” practises. It would be very easy to caricature the people who create these campaigns as idiotic Nathan Barleys , since their determination to dream up ever-so-clever op-art in exchange for cash, in order to experiment with the public psyche, is seemingly both narcissistic and sociopathic. However that would be to offer them a way out. “You’re over-reacting!” they’d cry. “We’re just having a larf!” they’d wink. But it’s not just members of the public who are finding this guff increasingly irritating; it’s clearly becoming an embarrassment to the industry. Of course “extreme ad placement” garners praise from some quarters as well as criticism . Good lord. “Extreme ad placement”. How do these people sleep at night?

In fact, here’s a link to the blog of an advertising account planner called Russel Davis , since he’s blogging about how unsavoury he finds urban spam (although unsurprisingly he does tend to have a pro-advertising slant). Here’s a quick quote to tempt you over there:

We should all stop before someone invents a Dr Strangelovey interruptive marketing doomsday machine that we can’t turn off.

Hallelujah brother, although I think it may already have happened.