by Colwyn Elder (@colwynelder) From the cave paintings of our ancestors to current social commentary, street art has evolved over many years to become a multifaceted, democratic and often rich form of visual expression.
More recently, we’ve witnessed yet another evolution, from outdoor urban environment to the somewhat cleaner walls of art galleries, where artworks are now being sold for serious amounts of money.
Maturing form
This move indoors shows a maturing form of urban art. It also lends artists a new level of credibility, ensuring their message is listened to more closely by more people.
The well-known-though-never-been-seen popular Banksy tops the list of the street-art genre, with his Keep It Spotless piece (essentially a defaced Damien Hirst painting) having sold in 2008 at a Sotheby’s Auction for US$1 870 000. He has been exhibiting on the streets of New York City during October 2013 with a series of new work that is part of his “Better Out than In” residency.
Banksy is probably the most famous street artist in the world and uses his credibility, talent, elusive mystique and marketing to bring attention to important environmental issues.
Great media placement
Whether a generic comment on rising water levels and deforestation, or a more specific corporate jibe such as the ‘kiddie dolphin ride‘ response to the BP oil spill, his commentary is clever and carefully positioned, bringing a contextual relevance that forces passers-by to pay attention.
In the communications industry, we call this great media placement.
Reverse graffiti is also clever placement of message and is well-used in the environmental sustainability space by artists and brands alike. As an evolution of the simple “wash me” message written with a fingertip on a dirty vehicle, reverse or clean graffiti is created by removing dirt or dust from a grimy surface.
“Professor of dirt”
Paul Curtis, pioneer of the reverse graffiti movement (and who goes by the street name “Moose”) says: “I make pictures by cleaning… I am a professor of dirt.”
Using a variety of tools, from a simple shoe-brush through to a high-pressure water stream, Moose aims to “beautify our urban environments by taking advantage of the negative spaces that can be created by cutting through their grimy coats”.
As with traditional graffiti, reverse graffiti is used commercially as a form of out-of-home advertising. In fact, whole agencies have been built off the back of the idea such as Green Graffiti in Europe and Curb Media, which operates out of the UK, Brazil and Mexico.
Forms of “natural” media
In addition to doing clean graffiti messaging for clients such as P&G and Vodafone, Curb Media also offers other forms of “natural” media, including a living floral billboard for Banrock wine to communicate its support for British wildflowers, “mossages” (messages grown in moss) for NPower’s Climate Cops campaign, pop-up gardens in otherwise rundown areas of London for Febreze, a sand sculpted car for Renault’s Captur launch, Sky Tweets for Paddy Power and an amazing bacterial billboard for Warner Bros’ launch of the film Contagion.
In this latter activation, two giant petri dishes were placed in a disused Toronto store window, allowing bacteria to spawn into the Contagion title over 10 days, generating over US$3 000 000 of earned media across North America and 500 000 YouTube views in 72 hours.
This blurring of context and content, media and message, makes for an exciting and constantly evolving media landscape, with numerous opportunities for sustainability-oriented messaging.
Communication in context
Call it what you will: guerilla marketing, brand activation, online content creation or PR stunt, Banksy shows us that to avoid gimmicks and borrowed interest, the success of communication in context lies is the strength of the idea. A good story well told.
Y&R strategy director Colwyn Elder (@colwynelder) has 17 years of experience in strategic planning, together with specific credentials in sustainability communications, social marketing, corporate social responsibility and cause-related marketing. She contributes the monthly “Green Sky Thinking” column on sustainability issues to MarkLives.