From anarchy to new world advertising – The Bubble project

What started out as an anti-advertising campaign now has the potential to take ads closer to consumers. Far from being subversive, the Bubble project is now the way forward.

Ji Lee (artist and art director) was the founder of the project in New York in 2002. It’s original aim was to “counterattack the one-sided corporate onslaught of marketing and advertisement messages that propagate public space”.

Ok, heavy socio-political stuff but we need people to challenge us. To do this he printed 15,000 stickers, die cut into the shape of speech bubbles, and started pasting them onto posters around New York. The passing public then started to add comments to these blank bubbles. He photographed them and posted them on the web.

By filling in the bubbles, consumers were engaging in the project and transforming “the corporate monologue into an open dialogue”. In the world of social networking and community engagement this is a brilliant idea.

But as a brand you can see it two ways.

Old school – you are defacing my ad. New school – you are ‘enfacing’ my ad. (Enfacing is a new street term for taking something dull and making it more interesting – look it up on Facebook).

The idea has spread globally and in the UK you can join it through Facebook (type in The Bubble Project (UK) into groups).

In 2006 Ji published a book on the ~Bubble project called ‘Talkback’. Ironically, rather than attacking advertising he was embracing the new era of advertising. His actions are making the more innovative minds in adland think.

The idea that consumers can interact with ads is the way forward. We are living in the world of ‘co-creation’ and ‘collective thinking’.

The old creative team of art director and copywriter is being replaced by consumer creativity and a creative director who filters, develops and manages the ideas. Have a look at what Facegroup are doing.

The idea that we just talk AT the public is fast becoming an outdated and irrelevant idea. As a concept this will freak out many brands and agencies, but the few that want to be progressive will more than likely embrace this as a concept. In fact I think it’s only a matter of time before we see a campaign for a top brand like Coke that looks like it’s a victim of the Bubble project but is in fact manipulating it. Those bubbles on the poster are designed to create social comment.

And why not? Shouldn’t our customers have a voice?

Back in the late 90’s when I was at McCann’s we developed a concept for Coke that allowed the public to make their message more important than Coke’s. At the time this was seen as too progressive. Today it’s acceptable.

The Bubble project may seem like a bit of fun, or even anarchist, but it’s more significant than that. What it really signifies is that the consumer is now in control, not the brands. And as a consequence the role of agencies as the ideas creator is now questionable.