View source for Subvertising

{{Short description|Parody advertising}}
[[File:Where is your family - due process.jpg|thumb|Two billboards with the same original content; the billboard on the right is an example of subvertising after being vandalized.]]
[[File:Exxtreme Droughts.jpg|thumb|The [[ExxonMobil]] logo as subverted by [[Greenpeace]].]]
{{Anti-consumerism|Theories}}

'''Subvertising''' (a [[portmanteau]] of ''[[subversion (political)|subvert]]'' and ''advertising'') is the practice of making spoofs or [[parody|parodies]] of [[corporation|corporate]] and [[politics|political]] [[advertising|advertisements]].<ref name="state">{{Cite news |first=Alexander |last=Barley |date=May 21, 2001 |title=Battle of the image |work=[[New Statesman]] |url=http://www.newstatesman.com/node/153475 |access-date=2010-12-09}}</ref> The cultural critic [[Mark Dery]] coined the term in 1991.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Dekeyser |first=Thomas |date=2020-08-09 |title=Dismantling the advertising city: Subvertising and the urban commons to come |journal=Environment and Planning D: Society and Space |volume=39 |issue=2 |language=en |pages=309–327 |doi=10.1177/0263775820946755 |issn=0263-7758 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Subvertisements are anti-ads that deflect advertising's attempts to turn the people's attention in a given direction.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dery |first=Mark |url=https://www.markdery.com/books/culture-jamming-hacking-slashing-and-sniping-in-the-empire-of-signs-2/ |title=Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing, and Sniping in the Empire of Signs |publisher=Open Media |year=1993 |location=New York}}</ref> According to author [[Naomi Klein]], subvertising offers a way of speaking back to advertising, ‘forcing a dialogue where before there was only a declaration.’<ref>{{Cite news |last=Klein |first=Naomi |date=8 May 1997 |title=Subvertising: Culture jamming reemerges on the media landscape |work=The Village Voice |url=http://ecumedesjours.com/artjammer.com/jamming_article.html}}</ref> They may take the form of a new image or an alteration to an existing image or icon, often in a [[satire|satirical]] manner.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Bonner |first1=Matt |last2=Raoul |first2=Vyvian |date=2022-11-28 |title=Subvertising: Sharing a Different Set of Messages |url=https://commonslibrary.org/subvertising-sharing-a-different-set-of-messages/ |access-date=2023-03-02 |website=The Commons Social Change Library |language=en-AU}}</ref> 

A subvertisement can also be referred to as a [[meme hack]] and can be a part of [[social hacking]], [[billboard hacking]] or [[culture jamming]].<ref>{{Cite news |date=March 4, 2009 |title=Clearing the Mindscape |work=[[Adbusters]] |url=http://www.adbusters.org/category/tags/subvertising |url-status=dead |access-date=2010-12-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927050110/http://www.adbusters.org/category/tags/subvertising |archive-date=September 27, 2011}}</ref>  Although he rarely altered physical ads, American performance artist [[Joey Skaggs]]' media interventions function as subvertisements. By parodying authoritative narratives and co-opting mass communication tools, he delivers countercultural messages which align with subvertising's intent to disrupt and critique dominant cultural messages using the very channels that propagate them.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Harold |first=Christine |date=2004-09-01 |title=Pranking rhetoric: “culture jamming” as media activism |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0739318042000212693 |journal=Critical Studies in Media Communication |volume=21 |issue=3 |pages=189–211 |doi=10.1080/0739318042000212693 |issn=1529-5036}}</ref>

According to ''[[Adbusters]]'', a [[Canada|Canadian]] magazine and a proponent of counter-culture and subvertising, "A well-produced 'subvert' mimics the look and feel of the targeted ad, promoting the classic '[[double-take (comedy)|double-take]]' as viewers suddenly realize they have been duped. Subverts create [[cognitive dissonance]], with the apparent aim of cutting through the '[[:wikt:hype|hype]] and glitz of our mediated reality' to reveal a 'deeper truth within'.{{Citation needed|date=May 2019}}

Subvertising is a type of ''advertising hijacking'' (''détournement publicité''), where [[détournement]] techniques developed in the 1950s by the French [[Letterist International]] and later used by the better-known [[Situationist International]] have been used as a contemporary critical form to re-route advertising messages.
==Notable instances==

In 1972, the logo of Richard Nixon's re-election campaign posters was subverted with two x's in Nixon's name (as in the [[Exxon]] logo) to suggest the corporate ownership of the Republican Party.<ref>{{Cite magazine |date=March 5, 1973 |title=Exxon Victorious |magazine=Time |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,903902,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080205043902/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,903902,00.html |archive-date=February 5, 2008}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Sore-Loserman: From political parody to charity's windfall. CNN. 4 Dec. 2000 |url=http://edition.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/12/04/stickers.election/ |access-date=2014-03-29 |publisher=Archives.cnn.com}}</ref>

In [[Sydney]], [[Australia]] in October 1979, a group of anti-smoking activists formed a group called [[Billboard Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions|B.U.G.A.U.P.]] and began altering the text on tobacco billboards to subvert the messages of tobacco advertisers, although advertisements for other unhealthy products were also targeted.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Civil Disobedience and Tobacco Control: The Case of BUGA UP, Simon Chapman |url=https://www.crossart.com.au/images/pdfs/Buga%20Up-Simon%20Chapman-1996.pdf |access-date=6 December 2019 |publisher=Tobacco Control Vol. 5, No. 3, 1996}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=McIntyre |first=Iain |date=2019-04-10 |title=BUGA-UP - Billboard Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions |url=https://commonslibrary.org/buga-up/ |access-date=2023-03-02 |website=The Commons Social Change Library |language=en-AU}}</ref>

On November 6, 2008, [[The Yes Men]] recruited thousands of social activists to hand out 100,000 copies of a spoof ''New York Times'' newspaper set six months in the future.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Chan |first=Sewell |date=2008-11-12 |title=Liberal Pranksters Hand Out Times Spoof |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/pranksters-spoof-the-times/ |access-date=2024-01-17 |website=City Room |language=en}}</ref> The goal was to utilize a tangible and trusted medium, the ''New York Times'', to argue for a particular future, in that case, one where the [[Iraq War]] had ended. Other groups involved with this project included [[Steve Lambert|Anti-Advertising Agency]], [[Code Pink]], [[United for Peace and Justice]], [[May First/People Link]], and [[Improv Everywhere]].{{Citation needed|date=April 2019}}

At the 2015 Paris COP21 climate conference, the collective known as [[Brandalism]] installed 600 posters that attacked what they perceived as the hypocrisy of corporate sponsors.<ref name="cnn.com">{{Cite web |date=23 March 2018 |title=The hackers using street ads to protest |url=https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/subvertising-ads-posters-billboards/index.html}}</ref>

In 2017, Brandalism and other groups of subvertisers founded the collective Subvertisers International.<ref>{{Cite web |first=Kieron |last=Monks |title='Subvertising' hackers are using street ads to protest |url=https://www.cnn.com/style/article/subvertising-ads-posters-billboards/index.html |access-date=2020-08-15 |website=CNN |date=23 March 2018 |language=en}}</ref> Using billboard hacking and other forms of subvertising, they promote the idea that advertising creates unhealthy body images, impacts democracy negatively, and sustains a culture of [[consumerism]] that takes a heavy toll on the planet.

Around 2018, a group in London called Legally Black changed the race of the characters in Harry Potter posters from white to black.<ref name="cnn.com" />

In 2022, billboards in London, Bristol, Manchester, Sheffield, Brighton, and 11 other European cities, were hijacked to highlight the role of airline emissions in the [[climate crisis]]. They highlighted the large [[carbon footprint]] of flying, that the majority of flights are taken by a tiny fraction of the total population, and that airlines have missed all but one of the industry’s self-imposed [[sustainability]] targets.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-09-22 |title=Activists subvert poster sites to shame aviation and ad industries |url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/22/activists-subvert-poster-sites-aviation-ad-industries-airline-emissions-climate-crisis |access-date=2022-09-23 |website=the Guardian |language=en}}</ref>

In January 2025, German police began investigating the distribution of political fliers from the far{{nbhyph}}right [[Alternative für Deutschland]] party that closely resembled airline tickets and targeted "illegal immigrants".  The fliers were placed in the mailboxes of people living in immigrant areas. [[Karlsruhe]] criminal police said they are seeking "persons unknown on suspicion of incitement of racial hatred".<ref name="cole-2025">
{{cite news
 | last1 = Cole | first1 = Deborah
 | title = German police investigate AfD flyers resembling plane tickets for immigrants
 | date = 14 January 2025
 | work = The Guardian
 | location = London, United Kingdom
 | issn = 0261-3077
 | url = https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/14/german-police-investigate-afd-flyers-resembling-plane-tickets-for-immigrants
 | access-date = 2025-01-15
}}
</ref>

==See also==
{{div col|colwidth=18em}}
*{{annotated link|Steve Lambert}}
*{{annotated link|Brandalism}}
*{{annotated link|Code Pink|CODEPINK}}
*{{annotated link|Criticism of advertising}}
*{{annotated link|Culture jamming}}
*{{annotated link|Iara Lee|Cultures of Resistance}}
*''{{annotated link|Czech Dream}}''
*{{annotated link|Darren Cullen (cartoonist)}}
*{{annotated link|Doppelgänger brand image}}
*{{annotated link|Hungarian Two Tailed Dog Party}}
*{{annotated link|Improv Everywhere}}
*{{annotated link|May First/People Link}}
*{{annotated link|Meme hack}}
*{{annotated link|United for Peace and Justice}}
*''{{annotated link|Wacky Packages}}''
{{div col end}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
*[http://www.adbusters.org Adbusters.org]

{{Culture jamming}}

[[Category:Advertising]]
[[Category:Culture jamming techniques]]
[[Category:Guerilla art and hacking art]]
[[Category:Promotion and marketing communications]]
[[Category:Derivative works]]
[[Category:Cultural activism]]