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.
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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.
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22 Comments
July 11th, 2007 at 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 ;)
July 11th, 2007 at 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!
July 12th, 2007 at 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.
July 12th, 2007 at 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!
July 12th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Done ….
http://img.infotropic.com/i/060618_1b.jpg
The teddy lives no more!
July 12th, 2007 at 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!
July 23rd, 2007 at 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.
July 24th, 2007 at 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.
July 29th, 2007 at 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.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Looking forward to seeing more of this!
October 3rd, 2007 at 11:23 pm
Wow… very interesting concept. I saw the video and didn’t understand exactly what they were doing. This explains much more.
February 14th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
for debtfree debtfree for
March 12th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Layers and layers of …. advertising. Seriously, good idea.
June 23rd, 2008 at 8:35 am
Hi, we´re having a lot of fun by doing it in Vienna. Best part is always the discussion with the Police. ^^ - check our pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/a.....587149042/
greets, Artoxic
July 2nd, 2009 at 6:54 am
Awesome art. I also made an illustration about sidewalk chalk drawing on my page.
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