Advertising vs Graffiti

Ok graffiti and outdoor advertising, essentially the same thing? Hear me out. Both are basically establishing yourself as a brand, both are marketing themselves in an area where they cannot be paused/muted/closed down, they are forcing their ideas on us and both, when done well, can be fantastic.

A few years ago in Cape Town, especially the southern suburbs there was a tagger called Toe who we all as sixteen year olds watched. Every time someone spotted a new tagging we’d talk about it, everyone’s alleged cousin was friends with him, it was interesting- the tags were almost always in cool places which you could stare at and just go “hooooooow?” We would look at this guy the same way we’d now watch a favourite brand, keeping an eye out for new products, talking about it –we’d essentially “following” him.  Around the same time Faith47 was HUGE, she was one of the world best female graffiti artists and her giant murals were both inspiring and culturally relevant.

Now 6years later, with Toe retired and Faith47 behaving, the Cape Town graffiti scene has gone to threads. I get the train to college every morning and it seems that every skillfully made tag is now just one OK-looking profanity. Like the horrific advertising that has been pasted all around the carriages (“Blacklisted Welcome”) it accosts my eyes every morning.  I feel the same way about outdoor right now, currently Red Bull have my favourite billboard spot in the city on the Wale/Long junction and what have the put up there? Something awesome about the skydive or action sports or long boarding down kloof? No. A nice big sign. In Black And White. That says Red Bull. Die, now.

Internationally both advertising and graffiti are constantly improving, sometimes even working together. Before the launch of film the Hangover 2 in Berlin, they spray painted stickmen vomiting on the curb of pedestrian roads with just the word “Hangover”. Yessss in a party city that’s how it works! Great idea. I personally saw them while crawling back from a two-day illegal rave at 6am. I keep on seeing this fantastic international graffiti and trying to see how you could bend that into a campaign, like this could you use that to somehow advertise petrol going further in certain cars? Or maybe this could be a specsavers ad? I mean Sony managed to capitalize on the awesome idea of unleashing bouncy balls into the street an idea which was originally done by a street artist in Rome, Sony combined it with a heartwarming Jose Gonzales track and created one of my favourite ads ever.

And this is exactly what I want in Cape Town! Our city is BEAUTIFUL, large billboards and big pieces of graffiti will always be blimps on our radar, why are they not interesting and inspiring? I know it’s a big ask, but all I want is for the next billboard in my favourite spot to be frikkin’ awesome. Please.