In a massive coordinating guerrilla marketing campaign, 82 artists from 19 countries produced and installed 600 convincing false advertisements around Paris, all targeting major polluters and corporate backers of the COP21 Climate Conference.

Orchestrated by Brandalism, these installations were professionally executed, placing real-looking adverts behind panes of glass at bus stops and street corners around the city. The aim: to raise awareness of corporate interests in the talks, particularly those with high fossil fuel consumption, and attempts by such companies to greenwash their behavior and appear to be on the side of sustainability.

The works came in all forms, from political cartoons to stark photographs showing the realities of climate change and impacts around the world. Some highlighted the roles of specific brands while others spoke more generally to the consequences of global pollution left unchecked.

From the organizers: “Amidst the French state of emergency banning all public gatherings following the terrorist attacks on 13 November in Paris, the ‘Brandalism’ project has worked with Parisians to insert unauthorised artworks across the city that aim to highlight the links between advertising, consumerism, fossil fuel dependency and climate change.”

Over three hundred bus shelter ads across the UK have been replaced with thought-provoking works criticizing capitalist culture by 40 street artists. The ‘Brandalism‘ posters were installed in high-traffic areas, from the busiest shopping district of London to the Leeds  Half Marathon route and even outside Scotland Yard, right under the noses of the police officers lambasted by several of the designs.

“The large print giveth, the small print taketh away,” reads one, while another parodies Harrod’s department store with “Horrids – trite gewgaws, trinkets & trash, the cluster bombs of consumerism.” “The market is dead, long live the market,” a third repeats.

The campaign is a response to the fact that the UK’s advertising industry pays just under 250 per person each year to reach the ears and eyeballs of the citizens i the hopes of selling things like “adjustable mops and leather sofas.” Plus, the industry relies on manipulation ranging from the subtle to the overt, convincing us that we won’t be happy until we make more money in order to purchase all of this stuff. It’s not about catering to our needs, it’s about creating new desires.

The campaign explains, “The fight against advertising is not a fight against desiring. We should want more from life not less, and we should demand it. The question is more of what? This exhibition is about trying to open up questions about the ills created by advertising, the false needs and destructive desires it attempts to distill in us, and it is about trying to reclaim some of the spaces taken from us.”

Brandalism even has a suggestion for anyone who isn’t a big fan of the work their artists produced: “Swapping them is easier than you’d imagine. All you need are some o the magic cabinet keys and a trusty hi-viz vest to remain hidden in plain sight. So if you don’t like what we’ve put up, check out our guide to opening the cabinets, and replace it with something you prefer. Because after all, they’re your streets.”

When the city sets up so-called ‘Info Pillars’ on the sidewalks – but then fills them with ads instead of actual information – how should the community respond? In Toronto, hacktivists decided to simply take things into their own hands, and replace the ads with art and information that’s actually useful.

Last fall, the Spacing Toronto blog asked, “Is this really an ‘info’ pillar?”, displaying photographs of the installations. The narrow space on the column itself has info like maps and bus schedules, but the overwhelming majority of the pillar is covered in ads.

Armed with special Torx screwdrivers, guerilla group cARTography TO nonchalantly broke into the Info pillars in broad daylight and replaced 35 ads with poetry and street art. One was cordoned off with a velvet rope and attendant security guard, the sign reading “Sidewalk 54 – Private pavement for diamond members only. Dress code strictly enforced.”

“We got together and started planning an artistic assault against them,” an unidentified cARTography TO activist told The National Post. “One, to beautify the city and beautify the pillars because we thought they were awful and ugly, but also to raise a lot of awareness on the issue…. They disrupt the flow of traffic for pedestrians. They block the line of sight for cyclists and for drivers.”

Toronto artist Sean Martindale donated six pieces of art to cARTography for the guerilla installation, including a modified bicycle. The pillars were previously hacked in January. Activists covered them in chalkboards and invited passersby to ‘Tell it like it is.’

Tired of seeing advertisements plastered all over city surfaces, from billboards to bus stops? French artist The Wa has a simple solution: pull down the shade. The installation artist placed roller blinds over ads in the city of Toulouse, allowing passersby to decide whether or not they want to look at them.

With public advertising seemingly reaching a saturation point – they’re even printed on manholes! – it’s no surprise that some people are feeling a little ad fatigue. Small guerilla efforts to replace ads with art or create ‘subvertising’ call to mind the more extreme efforts of the city of São Paulo, Brazil, which was scrubbed clean of advertising in 2006 thanks to the mayor’s ‘Clean City Law’. Six years later, the city is still ad-free.

Artist The Wa is generally known for larger installations. ‘Playground’ turned a do-not-enter sign into a basketball hoop with a  trash bag that promotes both fun and civic responsibility. Another installation spells out ‘Wrong World’ using brand logos. ‘Different Techniques’ reproduces large posters of flowers – the favorites of Kim Jong-Il and his son, Kim Il-Sung – and places them in a Western cityscape, juxtaposed with more conventional advertisements.

Alexandra Ross says of The Wa, “The most common relationship we are likely to have with the work of The Wa is with hindsight or through hearsay. Its critical, subversive provocations resist a lengthy duration in the public arena that would afford one the opportunity to experience it first hand. The lifespan of the artworks vary in public exposure, installation and removal. Therefore, it is the temporality of his work that is crucial to its reading.”

Looking to make a little extra money, and instigate an all-out war with your neighbors? A company called ‘Brainiacs from Mars‘ has the perfect solution. They’ll paint your house in the brightest, most annoying colors imaginable and plaster it with logos in the ‘Billboard Home Initiative’, which is aimed at homeowners dealing with the threat of foreclosure.

It’s not hard to see why people grappling with the potential loss of their home would feel desperate enough to turn to a service like this. While the ads are up, the company will actually pay your mortgage, eliminating a huge worry for people who have lost their jobs or are otherwise unable to make the payments. And once the contract is up, your house will be painted back to its original colors.

The company – previously known as Adzookie – has received over 33,000 applications and its Facebook page is plastered with messages from people proclaiming that their homes would make the perfect billboard. And the benefits to advertisers? According to Brainiacs from Mars, web traffic could see a increase of 56,000% within 30 days, along with a 2900% increase in customers in the same time period.

Of course, some people will get into big trouble with their homeowners associations, and could be hit with fines that wipe out the benefit. And it’s not likely to be a big hit with neighbors. If services like this increased in popularity, visual clutter and commercialism would creep into our communities in a bigger, bolder, uglier way than ever before.