The above is from Banksys 2004 pamphlet Cut it Out in which he lashes out at public advertising, condemning bullying advertisers for making their consumers feel inadequate and small, telling us and them we don't owe them everything, and we need our right to choose for ourselves.
Though I like his ideas and his work, I do find his message kinda ironic, after all he does also thrive off the same thing that advertisers do on a daily basis. He copyrights his images, is a brand in his own right.A marketing machine, that is just doing it in a more subtle way than your average brand.
Advertising daily is simply used daily, as a tool of capitalism, to sell s things that we do not necessarily need , that simply reinforces a consumerist ideology, that for many cannot escape or afford. .Everywhere we go we are influenced by advertisements that have an ideological message to persuades us to 'buy mass-produced commodities. It is clear that our capitalist society is shaping our culture, and identity, and there seems to be no aspect of our daily lives that isn't being used in the ways it seeks to influence us...
Meanwhile however campaigns use advertising to incorporate messages of resistance creating parodies that help us reavaluate beyond this bomardmentand of consmerist marketing.Working under the name ‘Brandalism’, a group of British street artists in Banksy's home city aims to subvert the consumer messages in advertising.According to the organisation’s website, the UK’s advertising industry pays out £16.1 billion each year to display a message or advert.
This works out as around £250 per person each year spent on sending messages or direct adverts to them.Brandalism says that advertising is not about catering to existing needs, but creating new desires. Not only desires, but insecurity as well, because we cannot desire without feeling like we lack something. This desire creates new kinds of people. Rather than the advert describing a product, we are now the product the advertiser is making. Advertising makes people feel insecure and unfulfilled when unable to access the products we’re told to desire. the subversion of advertising is developing into a political tool. It would be a strange irony if one day it were to become just another type of advertising.
