Projects tagged "Advertising & Consumerism"

Blixel: (Re)stock Image Collection
Practitioner:
Kenya Robinson
Date:
Apr 21 2021
The purpose of this project was the permeate stock images with more depictions of Black people. Stock images are usually easily found and utilized, showcasing people doing everyday activities or scenes. To boost representation of Black people in this particular image field, were left out, so the artist chose to recreate popular stock images with Black models to showcase representation and shed light on the lack of diversity in these photos.
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Real Women
Practitioner:
Dove
Date:
Apr 17 2004
The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty is a worldwide marketing/public relations campaign launched in 2004 that includes advertisements, video, workshops, sleepover events and the publication of a book and the production of a play. The principle behind the campaign is to celebrate the natural physical variation embodied by all women and inspire them to have the confidence to be comfortable with themselves.
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Soviet Army Monument - REDUX
Practitioner:
various activists
Date:
Feb 23 2014
Since the beginning of Bulgaria's transition to democracy, the monument’s meaning and future has been the subject of heated debates. Opponents to the monument aren’t happy about the presence of such a dominating foreign army monument in the country that is situated higher and more central than national symbols. In recent years, the monument has turned into a canvas for anonymous political statements on multiple occasions.
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Calvin Klein, Mother's Day
Practitioner:
Calvin Klein
Date:
May 8 2022
Text by David Artavia - An ad from Calvin Klein on Mother's Day featuring a pregnant transgender man and his trans partner has sparked a wave of backlash on social media.
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Brandalism
Practitioner:
Brandalism
Date:
Nov 27 2015
Brandalism, an organization out of the UK that aims to reclaim public spaces from advertisers, used Black Friday to protest "partner" brands to the COP21 Climate Conference. Anonymous artists contributed subvertisements that criticized these brand for their hypocrisy in saying they are advocates for the environment when more often than not they are the worst contributors to the problem.
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Molson’s newest red beer fridge touts Canada’s multicultural side
Practitioner:
Molson Canadian and Google
Date:
Jun 25 2015
The Globe and Mail Inc. Written by SUSAN KRASHINSKY MARKETING REPORTER TORONTO PUBLISHED JUNE 25, 2015 UPDATED MARCH 25, 2017 This is one persnickety refrigerator. Molson Coors Brewing Co.'s newest instalment of a now two-year campaign is attempting a new take on national pride in time for Canada Day.
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I shop therefore I am
Practitioner:
Barbara Kruger
Date:
Jan 1 1987
I Shop Therefore I Am (1987) is the work of Barbara Kruger . It became an iconic artwork, being reproduced on items such as shopping bags and other consumer products such as t-shirts. Kruger has often derived images from the mass media and pasted the words over them, particularly in Futura Bold . She then uses advertising to design her works.
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How Détournement Was Used as a Weapon in 15-M Protests
Practitioner:
Date:
May 15 2011
Just over a decade ago on May 15, 2011, a wave of social outrage began as the Spanish people collectively decided that they had had enough of the corruption, cuts, and inequalities affecting their country.
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Art, Activism, and the City: Illuminating Social Change
Practitioner:
Donkeys
Date:
Mar 13 2025
The creative fusion of art and activism in urban spaces has propelled the British collective Led by Donkeys into the spotlight, garnering millions of views for their interventions on social media. Their critical visual occupations - whether billboard messages during the day or large-scale projections at night - raise a compelling question: which medium holds the greater persuasive power?
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Ms. Marvel Bus Ad Defacement
Practitioner:
Unknown
Date:
Jan 30 2015
Racist adverts promoting hatred against Muslims are currently being run on buses in San Francisco - but someone has started covering them up with anti-hatred messages from Marvel's première Muslim superhero, Ms. Marvel.
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EASY TO ASSEMBLE - Spain's Podemos Leftist Party Printed its Program as an Ikea Catalog so Voters Will Actually Read It
Practitioner:
Podemos
Date:
Jun 9 2016
Whether or not they follow politics, it’s fair to assume most people don’t actually read electoral programs. Podemos, Spain’s growing leftwing party, which got nearly 21% of the votes in last year’s elections, doesn’t think that’s good, so it adopted an unusual marketing approach to tackle that problem: it printed the program as an Ikea catalogue (pdf, link in Spanish).
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Attractive & Fat
Practitioner:
Jes Baker
Date:
May 19 2013
Jes Baker is cutting retailer Abercrombie & Fitch down to size. Baker, who blogs under the name "The Militant Baker" and wears a size 22, changed the brand's A&F logo to "Attractive & Fat" in a mock, black-and-white Abercrombie ad to challenge the line's branding efforts.
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Putting a Stop to Supermodel Minnie Mouse
Practitioner:
Health at Every Size, Dances With Fat, Ragen Chastain
Date:
Sep 18 2012
When Disney and Barneys partnered together to create a runway-ready Minnie Mouse, outrage ensued from size and body acceptance activists claiming that the new Minnie Mouse was too skinny. Ragen Chastain, a leader in the Health at Every Size movement, and founder of popular blog "Dances With Fat," jumped on the controversy, and started a change.org petition that garnered over 145,000 signatures.
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Dove Real Beauty Campaign
Practitioner:
Dove
Date:
Apr 6 2014
The Photoshop action — a downloadable file that applies an action with a single click — is aimed at art directors who may be creating such ads. The action, which was disseminated on Reddit and other places where Dove thought such art directors might visit, promised to add a skin glow effect, but actually reverted the image to its original state.
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The Last Billboard
Practitioner:
Jon Rubin
Date:
Jan 1 2013
The Last Billboard is a 36-foot art installation located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Created in 2013, it features a steel frame and removable wooden letters that must be arranged by hand. Each month a different artist, activist or individual is invited by creator and curator, Jon Rubin, to come and utilize the billboard space. The participants share messages over this medium in the form of thoughtful questions, esoteric musings, or other visual means.
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Embarassing Plastic Bags
Practitioner:
East West Market
Date:
Jun 1 2019
East West Market in Vancouver, British Columbia have made it clear that they are very concerned about the effect that single use plastic items have on the environment.
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Max Factor 26 billboard improvement campaign launches the Billboard Liberation Front
Practitioner:
Billboard Liberation Front
Date:
Dec 1 1977
For 35 years, the Billboard Liberation Front have been altering public advertisements in San Francisco under the cover of night, strategically changing words or phrases to invert the intended message of corporate sponsors. Considering their guerrilla reclamation of public space an "improvement of outdoor advertising," the BLF regards the advertisers whose billboards they improve as clients, for whom they are performing a vital service.
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A New Kind of Barbie
Practitioner:
Nikolay Lamm
Date:
Mar 6 2014
"Many people have criticized Barbie dolls for their unrealistic proportions, claiming that they give young girls a warped idea of what beauty should be. To tackle this problem, Nikolay Lamm created digital visualizations of a regular-sized “Barbie” doll, hoping to promote realistic beauty standards.
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Occupy Barbie Dream-House
Practitioner:
Linksjugend [solid] Berlin Kreuzkölln
Date:
May 16 2013
We at "Left Youth ['solid] Kreuzkölln" have been around long enough of this policy and its lousy consequences for us. But how to solve the problem now? The problem is clearly the capitalist society for us. Even at school you will be prepared for competition and profit motive. We say: Stop it! The manifesto: Barbie Dream House in Berlin? Not with us!
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[Human Compliance Experiment] ‘The Push’: Netflix Special That Tests Human Compliance Is a Life-or-Death ‘Nathan for You’
Practitioner:
Derren Brown
Date:
Feb 23 2018
https://www.netflix.com/title/80220000 http://www.indiewire.com/2018/02/the-push-netflix-review-ending-derren-b... Article from IndieWire by Steve Greene
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At War With São Paulo’s Establishment, Black Paint in Hand
Practitioner:
pichação
Date:
Jan 1 2012
New York Times January 28, 2012 By SIMON ROMERO SÃO PAULO, Brazil — This mega-city’s authorities have waged war for years against what they call “visual pollution,” banning billboard advertising, demolishing abandoned skyscrapers and planning to raze concrete eyesores like the elevated highway known as the Big Worm.
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Zou Yaqi, a Chinese woman who spent 21 days living in Beijing for free by taking advantage of inherent classism issues in China
Practitioner:
Zou Yaqi
Date:
May 1 2021
BEIJING — Like many art students, Zou Yaqi often worried she’d be unable to afford to live in Beijing after graduation. So, earlier this year, she decided to set herself a daunting challenge: Survive in the city for three weeks without spending a single yuan. It turned out to be a piece of cake. 
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Kind Coins Pakistan, Kids for Peace School and Peace Centre
Practitioner:
Kids for Peace Global USA and Kids for Peace Pakistan
Date:
Jan 23 2017
Dear Team Please find below the links of the video and detail of Kind Coins Pakistan, Kids for Peace Pakistan School and Peace Centre, hope you will publish it on your website and circulate it at large, your this publication and circulation can change the lives of Pakistani kids and children Kind Coins for Pakistan
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Fat Barbie
Practitioner:
Plus-Size-Modeling
Date:
Nov 29 2013
For those of you unfamiliar with the wonderful Worth1000, it’s a website that hosts creative contests of all kinds, most notably for photoshoppers who are outstanding at what they do. Hell, just look at the first question on the site’s FAQ list and you’ll have a basic idea of how good some of these people are at making terrific photoshops.
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Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir
Practitioner:
Reverend Billy
Date:
May 25 1950
Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir is a New York City based radical performance community, with 50 performing members and a congregation in the thousands. We are wild anti-consumerist gospel shouters and Earth loving urban activists who have worked with communities on four continents defending community, life and imagination. Our Devils over the 15 years of our "church" have remained the same: Consumerism and Militarism.
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