Piers Fawkes writes in "Urban Spam, Our Thoughts" that there is a new scourge upon us - as coined by Russell Davies - of "Urban Spam".
The problem is, of course, that the phenomenon of outdoor advertising is not new, and it's not much of a scourge. We've had the sort of ambient media that Piers rails against for decades now, with agencies like Kirshenbaum and Bond even writing books on the subject. And to set the record straight, advertising was scrawled on the walls of the marketplace in ancient Pompeii. Outdoor advertising is, for better, or worse, a healthy part of civilisation. As long as there is commerce and free speech, there will be some combination of the two visible on the streets.
You have to scratch your head at PSFK's stance on advertising. On the one hand, they sponsor marketing awards that celebrate some outdoor events - such as Qwest's ConQwest, which I was a part of putting together. On the other, they label all of it meaningless monologue and warn us that agencies will be punished by some unseen wrath for our sins.
Do they really want an end to all interruptive advertising? Just because it's on the internet doesn't make it a dialogue; Google Adwords are more relevant and less obtrusive than most adverts, but are interruptive advertising nonetheless. And who says we want a conversation with everything in the world anyway? Some things in our lives are rightfully transactional, like the morning commute, or paying for diapers at the convenience store; in those situations, the less interaction, the better.
I'll argue that there is room in a company's communications for both interruptive and interactive forms. Even PSFK.com runs advertising along its sidebars for its own products and for agencies like Anomaly.
In the accompanying video, the PSFK crew want to shock us with all the irritating and indecent things that are being done on the street.
The video shows some Adbusters types painting over and hijacking billboards. I think there is different point being made by these people; it's not that they want better advertising - it's that they want advertising out of their lives altogether. In other words, they don't want a dialogue or to be more initimate with a brand. What they want is corporations taking less - not more - of a role in their lives. A corporate blog or a Flickr photostream is going in the wrong direction for the adrebels of the world.
I can't help but think that the repulsion that the video hopes to incite is a prudish one. There's a lot of ads for lingerie stores and condoms in the video, which expects you to be outraged at the thought that these sorts of "dirty" products are out speaking on the street. That seems a bit judgemental. If people in countries other than the U.S. don't have a problem with selling sex in outdoor advertising, then why should we?
The only argument I will agree with is that it's often a waste of money to try and bombard customers at every possible opportunity. The lesson here is mainly economic and not moral. It just costs a lot to get people's attention with these sorts of outdoor spectaculars. But there's no reason to blame the medium for the faulty messages from agencies (or for the bad media plans).
I think of executions like TBWA's Vertical Football for Adidas in Tokyo. It was engaging, effective, and fun. Is that "urban spam" too? Some guidance, please.
