Buzz Giant Poster Boy

American Demographics, June 1, 2004 by Noah R. Brier

Drew Neisser, president and CEO of New York-based Renegade Marketing, anticipates that a far more active and aggressive effort will be necessary to engage consumers. Younger audiences are "the group who has figured out how to block every ad there is," Neisser says. "They've put up every barrier possible and said 'when I'm ready, you can talk to me.'"

Fairey was able to connect to this new generation, whose views of the world have been shaped by the saturation of advertising in their lives as well as by the Internet. He found them willing and eager to think about and identify with a brand that symbolized a protest against the "corporatized" world. What evolved was a lesson in building brand awareness through a wholly redefined "word of mouth." People were talking about it, newspapers were writing about it and the face of Andre the Giant peered out among more and more streets.

As a possible preview of how the Fairey modus operandi will work in the real world of big brands, his Studio Number One has done design assignments for Red Bull and was recently hired by Coca-Cola to create all the street marketing materials for the new Sprite campaign.

In a world in which 10 companies spent over $1 billion on U.S. advertising alone in 2003, marketers are constantly rethinking strategies to better connect with consumers. "When creating a brand strategy you have to be aware how people are thinking and behaving and what's going on in the culture," says brand identity guru Siegel. "You don't work in the abstract; you work in the current environment." Staying current and cool sometimes turns disastrous for marketers. In 2002, New York City was bedecked in butterflies, courtesy of Microsoft, as part of a $300 million campaign handled by McCann-Erickson to promote the software giant's MSN 8 Internet service. A storm of community controversy forced Microsoft to issue apologies and pay for the cleanup. Consumers don't appreciate seeing corporations promote with stickers and posters, "because they can promote through another media and they are just trying to do what's hot right now," explains Fairey.

Fairey is not the only street artist who sees the marketing world as a canvas for irony. Brian Donnelly, aka Kaws, is a graffiti artist known for "defacing" advertising posters with his own stylized skull and crossbones "logo" in a way that makes it look like part of the ad. Kaws gained notoriety after moving to New York where he had unlimited access to the ads on bus shelters and phone booths to showcase his skills. Although he never creates ads for marketers because he is dedicated to maintaining complete creative control, his work will appear in the next few weeks on a billboard in Los Angeles sponsored by Nike. When asked to comment on Obey Giant as a branding strategy he said, "It's successful because it's something that just happened, because if a company tried to model themselves after him [Fairey] they would fail. People who buy his stuff have seen the growth and are educated."