Getting rid of advertising…it’s the new black.
Today @brainpicker posted about 500 New York taxis replacing their normal roof light advertising with art for the month of January. Apparently it’s a quiet month for taxi advertising after the furor that is December, however, it’s still setting Show Media back a reported $100,000 in lost revenue. The lucky artists getting their work displayed aroud the city will be Shirin Neshat, Alex Katz and Yoko Ono.
But that amount of media income lost; why? Because Show Media have made it into the New York Times, waves on Twitter, and they can expect to get significantly more attention for whatever replaces the art in that media space on February 1st 2010. Filling that media space will also cost considerably less for the next few years as Show Media’s name gets banded about for going all indie in the capitalist capital. Basically, people will bloody love it, and when people love it, they talk about it.
Going against the grain gets you that exposure, the greatest tool a marketer has is the unexpected.
Another example of anti-advertising advertising involves Hyundai, who bought all the ad space (at a cost of $2.2 million) in a newly opened subway station next to its plant in South Korea. This saved their employees from excessive ads as they replaced it with white space and the occasional small car image. PSFK covered this a few months ago.
I really like the approach. If your ad gets to replace this anti-ad, you can really play on it., make the most of there having been nothing there before and integrate this approach into your own campaign It’s a thin line to walk, but if you get it right the cut through could be incredible; and we all love a good challenge!
So, to conclude, anti-advertising gets the anti-advertiser a load of PR, but also allows the follow-up piece of advertising that fills the space to get greater cut through, especially if handled in the right manner.
