Guerilla Marketing Meets Reverse Graffiti

Imagine creating amazing street art murals, graphics or graffiti tags anywhere you wanted and in a completely legal why. Now imagine getting paid for it. Well, one featured Web Urbanist street artist group does exactly that. � The urban artists of Symbolix selectively clean the uban environment, leaving behind slogans, words and images of major companies and product releases. This group has managed to turn a street art hobby into a guerilla marketing campaign strategy.

The above murals are excellent examples, similar to those shown in the prior Web Urbanist post, of selective cleaning as urban street art. They show the range of possibilities, from typical tags to complex social messages. All of these are, of course, completely legal - reverse graffiti that boggles the authorities.

It is truly remarkable how the Stashpoint slogan stands out against the dirt and grime of the urban subway system. It is easy to imagine how a company would recognize the value of such a guerilla marketing campaign: these images are far more compelling than a typical framed advertisement in public.

This Big Brother guerilla marketing campaign is similarly prominent. In particular, in the left image, this branded image of an eye truly stands out from its surroundings. In fact, at least in the photograph, the image seems to stand out more than the sign it is written on.

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This campaign for Hype really demonstrates the variety of possibilities inherent in reverse street art guerilla marketing. Simply by removing a layer of posters, for example, the letters clearly stand out in the left image - as if they were creatively drawn on. On the right, the potentials of erasure on different media are revealed. Together, even this simple repeated word takes on new life in relationship to various backdrops and settings.

Most Commented Posts

Posted by Urbanist July 11th, 2007
Guerilla Marketing, Street Art, Urban Art, Urban Images
Comments: 19

Comments

Comment from Marc Falk
Time: July 11, 2007, 8:00 am

Nice! I’m looking forward to see more of this in future. Of cause it’s working now, because it’s new, but it’ll probably transform into everyday stuff, aight? I’m not that much into grafitti and street art…

Anyway, here in Denmark, the opinion of street art is quite strict, and the government (and everybody else) will do everything to avoid this…

Great info ;)

Comment from Web Urbanist
Time: July 11, 2007, 12:15 pm

The thing is: authorities can’t really figure out what to do about this kind of street art - because the ‘graffiti’ is just cleaned areas that stand out against the dirty background. Often they come and clean the whole area to get rid of it, but they can’t figure out any way to fine people for cleaning!

Comment from Corporate Whore
Time: July 12, 2007, 5:08 am

I want to see a pic of the dead duck. But I guess by posting this comment, the duck won’t “get it”. Shame.

Comment from Deb
Time: July 12, 2007, 5:44 am

That is so cool. I’d love to see more of this! I love when creative ideas turn into things like this. Imagine taking something deemed as dirty and making a building or street or bridge that’s all marked in this, instead of what it’s usually in…Brilliant!

Comment from Corporate Whore
Time: July 12, 2007, 4:10 pm

Done ….
http://img.infotropic.com/i/060618_1b.jpg

The teddy lives no more!

Comment from WebUrbanist
Time: July 12, 2007, 8:04 pm

Oh my … we will need to kill the duck then as agreed. Well, the countdown has begun - we will kill him tomorrow at the latest!

Comment from Matt Keegan
Time: July 23, 2007, 8:27 am

What an interesting way to leave your impression — clean up the grime selectively to make your point. I can see how this can cause conflict for the authorities.

Comment from neh
Time: July 24, 2007, 5:23 pm

just what our public landscape needs more of–corporate advertising.

and what better way to reach a young or artistic audience in order to turn them into consumers and to destroy subversion than by taking control of the subverts own weapon?

yeah, keep clapping, article commentators.

Comment from WebUrbanist
Time: July 29, 2007, 4:35 pm

There are clearly two sides to this issue. What I would ask of the anonymous commenter is: what would you have them do? Work a day job that will inevitably support the corporate world and do ‘non-corporate’ street art at night? I’m not saying there is an easy answer, but it seems naive to just dismiss any street artists who profit off their work.

Comment from chix0r
Time: September 20, 2007, 3:02 pm

Looking forward to seeing more of this!

Comment from Evisu
Time: October 3, 2007, 11:23 pm

Wow… very interesting concept. I saw the video and didn’t understand exactly what they were doing. This explains much more.

Comment from states debtfree
Time: February 14, 2008, 9:44 pm

for debtfree debtfree for

Comment from Guerilla Marketing
Time: March 12, 2008, 11:55 am

Layers and layers of …. advertising. Seriously, good idea.