Definition
Subvertising refers to practices of engaging with advertising critically, both symbolically and materially, and can aim for futures beyond growth-driven economies and consumer-driven cultures. For example, it engages with advertising symbolically through challenging the language of advertising, and materially through illustrating its connections with carbon-intensive industries. Subvertising can be understood as both an activist practice and a social movement. It is often used interchangeably or in connection with terms such as culture jamming, anti-advertising, adbusting, and ad takeovers, while in Spanish it is known as contrapublicidad, and in French antipublicitaire.
History
The practice of détournement (the mixing of artistic elements to make a political intervention), which was popularized by French radical movements in the 1950s (Letterist International, Situationist International), can be regarded as a predecessor of subvertising. From the late 1970s onwards, subvertising groups and organizations appeared. A non-exhaustive list of subvertising movements includes:
- Adbusters (Canada)
- Berlin Busters Social Club (Germany)
- Billboard Liberation Front (United States of America)
- Billboard Utilising Graffitists against Unhealthy Promotions or B.U.G.A. U.P. (Australia)
- Brandalism (United Kingdom)
- Democratic Media Please (Australia)
- Front de Libération de l’Invasion Publicitaire (FLIP) Switzerland)
- Le Collectif des Déboulonneurs (France)
- Consume Hasta Morir (Spain)
- Proyecto Squatters (Argentina)
- Résistance à l’agression publicitaire (France)
- Special Patrol Group (United Kingdom)
At the same time, subvertising practice has been used by movements such as the Anti-Apartheid Movement calling for the boycott of Barclays Bank in connection to Apartheid and South African goods (see Boycott and Buycott). In 2017, Subvertisers International was launched as a network of individuals and organizations taking action to address the effects of advertising, such as overconsumption and natural degradation to name a few. The launch included an international advertising takeover campaign, public meetings, screenings, lectures, and workshops. Since then, transnational coordinated actions of members (mainly in the Global North), such as the Subvert The City and ZAP (Zone Anti-Publicité) Games have been inviting participatory actions against advertising and consumerism. Individual citizens, artists, and collectives come together in these activities to express alternative views and practices and engage in movement-building activities.
Different Perspectives
It is possible to unpack different approaches to subvertising by theorizing it as anti-consumerism. Following Kim Humphery, anti-consumerism is
a field of alternative social and economic practices, a political stance and current, that traverses movements of various kinds – from the strategically oriented to the experientially based – and invokes an array of political perspectives and strategies – from the liberal to the libertarian, and from the planned to the impetuous.
(2009: 109)
Subvertising tends to be understood as a series of fleeting individual or collective interventions in advertising spaces. Also, research on subvertising has predominantly focused on subvertising as a merely countercultural practice. Subvertising is “focused on challenging the ideology of consumerism purveyed through advertising” (Humphery, 2009: 50). Yet, beyond momentary activist intervention, subvertising is also considered a social movement, proposing systems change in response to social and economic inequality and the climate crisis (see Carbon Inequality, Climate Justice).
Historically, the subversion of advertising texts (a.k.a. culture jamming) has been critiqued for considering citizens to be merely dozing, and activists as attempting to awaken them. The key issue here is the focus of anti-consumerism on what it is “against”. Within the context of cities, for example, order is produced by several actors (institutional and non-institutional, legal and social, material and discursive, corporate and non-corporate) to rule out or eliminate disorder. Identifying the dominance of advertising within public (urban) spaces, Thomas Dekeyser writes that “subvertising performs an embodied experiment in cracking open the regime of order” (314). In doing so, the practice of subvertising manifests itself as non-violent civil disobedience, advocating for distance from consumerism and branded culture or against corporate wrongdoings and environmental injustice. Moreover, the range of activities that groups involved in subvertising undertake promote collective dialogue and community by bringing people together to discuss issues related to advertising. These activities range from producing materials for community organizing and advertising literacy material for schools to organizing workshops for making subvertisements.
Application
In the following, two examples of subvertising relating to the systemic politics of consumption are presented. First, the UK-based group Brandalism undertook coordinated actions during COP21, at which the Paris Agreement was adopted, targeting the corporate sponsorship of the UN climate talks. An analysis of visuals that replaced advertisements in bus stops across Paris (see Figure 60.1) demonstrates a range of narratives from (i) corporate greed (highlighting the irony and incongruity of airlines and major fossil fuel polluters sponsoring climate talks) to (ii) inadequate political will (government inability to act in the public interest), (iii) consumer saturation (the role of smartphones in occupying our attention), (iv) Earth in mourning (an unwell planet), and (v) public commitment to the environment (poetic declarations of love and commitment to the environment, calls for alternative allocation of time, DIY and self-provision and restored value in interpersonal relations and community exchanges) (Lekakis, 2017).
Source: Photo by Author
Brandalism’s subvertising actions during COP21 used the logic and space of dominant commercial discourses to disrupt and remix them for present and prefigurative aims. In doing so, they went beyond critiques of culture jamming by aligning with other social movements and articulating a systemic critique of economic growth (see Degrowth). Importantly, this critique addresses advertising as both a symptom and a cause (intertwining politicians, corporations, and consumer culture) of systemic issues like the climate crisis.
Second, a couple of years later, Brandalism joined the previously mentioned Subvertisers International. While the members of Subvertisers International range in terms of agency (individuals and collectives), tactics (including the use of fire extinguishers to cover advertising screens), and targets (from co-creating and installing subvertisements to lobbying for advertising policy), they share a concern about the influence of advertising, its urgency, and mobilization through non-violent action. In 2022, Subvertising International published a report (Advertising and its Discontents) putting forward recommendations for regulations that redefine the definition of acceptable advertising activities, protecting public spaces from the aggressive presence of advertising, and introducing economic measures such as taxation on advertising practice.
Subvertising activism, whether individual, ephemeral, collective, or sustained, is important for transforming consumption and production systems because it brings advertising as a catalyst of overconsumption to the center stage. Subvertising is more than being “against” advertising. It is more than telling people not to buy. It is more than disrupting the presence of advertising (despite that being a central tenet). It is about creating opportunities for thinking beyond what advertising puts in front of us and about creating change through advertising regulation that protects against socially and environmentally harmful advertising. Subvertising has centered on the ethics of advertising in response to the corporatization of culture, but also on socio-economic inequality and the climate crisis. Policy recommendations stemming from social movements such as Subvertisers International pose opportunities for systems change that holds advertising accountable to people and the planet.
Further Reading
Dekeyser, T. (2021). Dismantling the advertising city: Subvertising and the urban commons to come. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 39(2), 309–327. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775820946755.
Humphery, K. (2009). Excess: Anti-consumerism in the west. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Kozinets, R.V., & Handelman, J.M. (2004). Adversaries of consumption: Consumer movements, activism, and ideology. Journal of Consumer Research, 31(3), 691–704. https://doi.org/10.1086/425104.
Leal-Rico, I., Papí Gálvez, N., & Sánchez-Olmos, C. (2024). Evolution of studies on subvertising: A scoping review. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 11(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03972-9.
Lekakis, E. (2017). Culture jamming and brandalism for the environment: The logic of appropriation. Popular Communication, 15(4), 311–327. https://doi.org/10.1080/15405702.2017.1313978.