art not ads

Some intriguing adverts have appeared recently on London Underground trains. In trendy red, black and white, with pixelated lettering and dirty “urban” scrawls, the ads inform us of vaguely worrying “facts” - for example, 75% of information on the Internet is controlled by one company. The only other detail is a URL:

http://www.information-revolution.org

Could it be that a funky, media-savvy outfit has been formed just to look out for us average internet users? Has a digital Batman unleashed his fearsome data-privacy super-powers on the unjust of the web’s information oligarchy? How exciting! Visiting the site reveals some obtuse ramblings about an apparent group of chums who dreamt up this crazy scheme over a few beers one evening, and then knocked up a website. Okay, so not Batman exactly, but isn’t it great that a group of Citizens has formed to protect us from this pernicious Big Brother? Which begs the question, who is this Big Brother anyway? Ah, there it is, tucked away: it’s Google.

Can it be that these guys combine Batman’s sense of justice with David’s (of “David vs Goliath” [tm] fame) giant-slaying Biblical might? Why, that would be just great!

Erm, no. Of course not. It is apparently a bizarre attempt at kick-starting a “viral marketing” campaign. The website is operated by an advertising agency called Profero, whose clients include Yahoo! and Ask - two companies who are desperate to claw some of the market out of Google’s sticky fingers. Considering the site is in Ask’s index, but neither Google nor Yahoo! have indexed the site yet, suggests that Ask have sponsored this. That’s just guess-work of course. (Update: Inspired guess-work it seems. An ad on TV last night confirms it is indeed Ask behind this atrocious campaign. Where exactly do they think all this pompous cyber-warrior nonsense is going to get them? Where will it end? Will they not rest until their CEO is hoisted onto the shoulders of the unshackled hoi-polloi, who, weeping hot tears of thanks after years of oppression, rally around their saviour - a 3rd rate search engine???)

The campaign is so hugely clumsy it beggars belief. It’s so easy to register a website anonymously, and they didn’t even bother doing that. Spattering fnords all over London advertising media is such an out-dated advertising technique it just makes you cringe (and has doubtless attracted the attention of Google’s legal department). Companies like Nike and Reebok conducted sophisticated viral marketing campaigns decades ago, before it was even known by that name, by paying teenage taste-makers to wear their products and tell their friends how great they were (read Naomi Klein’s book “No Logo” for more detail on that sordid industry). However viral marketing is so formulaic these days that Profero can’t even be bothered to do anything beyond the basics: trendy ads, blah blah, website, blah, privacy paranoia, blah blah, blog, vox-pop video interviews, done. That’ll be several thousand pounds, please, thank you. I’m surprised they haven’t spooged it all over YouTube and MySpace. Well, never mind, at least they offer us free t-shirts so that we can “get involved”. Thanks for that.

The thing that’s really odd is that Profero’s campaign is so ball-achingly poor that they must assume that either (a) the populous is stupid enough to swallow it, or (b) their client is stupid enough to pay for it. Unfortunately the latter is clearly true.

The last word in street-chic, someone has created printable coldsores. Download the delightful graphics, print them onto sticky labels, and apply to the glamorous model in your favourite advert.