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December 26, 2005
Marketing Guerilla Or Capitalist Sellout? How About Both?
The corporate turn to "street" or, worse, "guerilla" marketing figures both an exhaustion and a transcendence of the old mass-market sales pitch, which could thrive in industrial societies where difference and change were not the reigning totem-idols. Now they are. The godheads are deviance and authenticity: yes, the real freak (opposite of our hallmark, the "real fake"), the guy or girl who is as "street" as they are "savvy." This is what McDonald's wants -- the genuine hipster who will sell out for a year's salary from pinkie finger-liftin'-good chicken sandwich ads. Read Mike Musgrove at WaPo ("What Looks Like Graffiti Could Really Be an Ad"):
In major cities such as San Francisco, Miami and New York, Sony has paid building owners to use wall space for the campaign, and the images have become a familiar sight. It's the latest effort by a big corporation to capitalize on the hot world of street art to reach an urban market that has learned to tune out traditional advertising.
Posted by James G. Poulos at December 26, 2005 11:43 AM
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