art not ads

What a great idea. Print out a load of cartoon speech-bubbles, and stick them onto posters, allowing anyone to write whatever they feel in the inviting blank space. The Bubble Project .

After indulging in a little “web Zen” i.e. typing “artnotads” into Google and seeing what’s out there, I spotted that Art Not Ads is mentioned in the Broken Windows blog back in July 2006. Wikipedia discusses the “broken windows theory of urban degeneration with these words:

“Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it’s unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside. Or consider a sidewalk. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of trash from take-out restaurants there or breaking into cars.” A successful strategy for preventing vandalism… is to fix the problems when they are small. Repair the broken windows within a short time, say, a day or a week, and the tendency is that vandals are much less likely to break more windows or do further damage.

An interesting notion. The Broken Windows blog describes itself as a “thorn in the side of marketing”, and they point out that advertising isn’t working , citing ad-company Titan’s use of their own billboards to advertise, erm, themselves. This harks back to comments from a while ago on the Pledgebank notice board that when people justify advertising as a means of funding public services, they’re missing the point. Ad execs don’t sit around in boardrooms all day wondering “How on earth can we find more cash for the public, dammit?” - they sit around wondering how they can make more cash for their clients (and hence themselves). Advertising hoardings are cash-cows, pure and simple, and the agencies want more and more of them. There seem to be so many that they are actually left vacant. And yet worthy causes such as charities and Platform for Art are left to pick up the crumbs from the table, and told to be thankful. What a bizarre situation.

I saw something interesting today. The web-browser Firefox was advertised in the New York Times on 16th December 2004. The ad featured over 10,000 people who had donated US$250,000 to the Mozilla Foundation. It’s great to see an example of a donation-funded organisation creating an alternative to the norm. Although there was nothing unusual about their choice of advertising tactic or medium, or indeed their aims, it’s always good to know that wherever there is a corporate monoculture, someone will try to make a difference.

Today I noticed on MSN that they are inviting people to comment on some of the advertising that appears on their site. After checking an @hotmail.co.uk email address of mine, I logged out, and my browser was redirected to the UK MSN page, as per usual. Underneath the ubiquitous “Kong” movie-trailer ad, there was a link asking me to “Please feed back on this advert”.

The link takes you to a page which asks the following questions:

1. How do you feel about this advert?
2. Please explain why you feel this way about this advert.
3. Did this advert affect your opinion of MSN?
4. Please rate this advert in each the following areas by using a scale of 1 to 9, where 9 = “Outstanding or Extraordinary” and 1 = “Unacceptable or Poor”
5. As a result of this advert, are you more/less likely to use MSN?
6. Did this advert affect your opinion of the advertiser?
7. Which statement best reflects your intention to look into this product?

Obviously a lot of this information can be used to “improve” the advertising. In particular, items 1, 2, 6 and 7 will give MSN valuable information to pass on to their advertisers. This will allow them to charge a premium for selling this information, or allowing advertisers access to this feedback. The other questions, though, give people a chance to communicate their annoyance about these ads direct to MSN. Of course, MSN are free to throw this straight into the bin. However, I doubt they’ll do that, since it’s valuable feedback that gives them a useful insight into their users’ thoughts. If a significant number of people say they find the advertising annoying, and that it significantly detracts from their experience of the MSN website, then people in suits in MSN offices will start discussing what can be done about it. And maybe we’ll start a slow shift away from the trashy, ad-laden websites that clog up the web.