Culture Jam
I’m reading Culture Jam and it’s a pretty interesting read. What I’ve read so far isn’t terribly revolutionary, however. The beginning seems to make assertions that are relatively obvious to any intelligent person, and the rest seems to continue on this path of preaching to the choir. What I was really hoping that the book would discuss are techniques for culture jamming and the marketing fundamentals that underly them. I think it’s important to do subvertisements or liberate billboards in a manner that really motivates the masses and doesn’t just make interesting art or give the intellectual elite a chuckle.
I came across this tidbit in /. (originally reported in The Village Voice’s Jockbeat) and it represents a fairly subtle but funny way of culture jamming.
Jockbeat’s newest hero is Jonah Peretti, who turned Nike’s
corporate creativity against itself in a stand against third-world
exploitation labor. Peretti’s protest made use of the swoosh brand’s
Nike iD Web site, which allows customers to “build your own”
sneaker, complete with a word of your choice, or “iD,” printed on the
side. For his iD, Peretti selected “sweatshop,” which generated the
following e-mail exchange: