While I am not condoning the methodology of the group known as the “Billboard Liberation Front” (BLF) (essentially it is vandalism) there is something interesting about their method of “deconstructing” the marketing machine (sorry fans of Mad Men). This group goes to various company billboard ads altering them to tell a message that they think is the “real” message of the company. Here are some examples:
The first ad is for the liquor brand Stella Artois. The man looks at an attractive woman (because alcoholic beverages and beautiful people go together…naturally) and the original caption says, “She is a thing of beauty“. The BLF removed “of beauty” to expose the objectification of the woman in the ad. Now it says, “She is a thing.”
In the second ad Wachovia bank tried to tell people that by giving them their money the consumer could “Watch your little ones grow”. BLF added some flame to the money and reworded the ad to “Watch your little ones grow burn”.
The last one is a McDonalds ad exposing the alien nature of the food they feed us. Very clever.
While their methods may be suspect I think their agenda is correct: we must deconstruct ads (especially during this time of the year)! We all fall prey to them at times, but we are likely going to be better off when we realize the world they are trying to sell us is not real.
the archives near Emmaus 
Yes! We did this exact thing for a project in my media studies class. “Culture Jamming” is what it technically was, but it’s exactly that; deconstructing the surface-level ad to see the deeper meaning (or a possible deeper meaning as there could be several interpretations). And yes, very true; this time of year we’re prone to impulsively buy things merely because of simple ads like these. It’s a crucial time to criticize 🙂
Ditto! I agree Brian. Deconstructing ads is necessary, and fun! But Christians would be wise to stop imitating them!
@Jeremy: Culture jamming! I like that.
@Rod: What? Your not impressed with how awesome the church is at marketing our “product”? 😉
@Brian, would you like some fries with that?
@Rod, I think I would show up to church 10x more often if they offered free fries.
As a marketing guy who hates most of the consumer marketing I see in America, I enjoyed this post. Way to deconstruct those lies and expose them for what they are!