Vizeum: We’re graffiti-ing the streets of Sydney and Melbourne
Newly launched media agency FrankVizeum has revealed on its website that it has commissioned an ambient agency to illegally spray stencils onto streets in Sydney and Melbourne to promote itself.
Agency boss Martyn Thomas talks about the move in a blog posting to announce the arrival of the agency. Along with a picture of the stencil on a Sydney street, he says:
“We are a new type of agency that goes beyond the world of advertising’s traditional media planning and buying dictate which is too often stuck in the old paradigm.
“Our targeted stencils go some way to support this point by challenging the accepted norms of targeting broad audiences “P25-54″ (all people aged 25-54) and the obsession of accountability by percentages such as 48.76% 2+ reach etc. etc. Thanks to Media Tree for helping us make this happen.
“It is time for change and for clients to get more from their communications; it is time for frankness about what is really working and what isn’t. We fuse audience motivation, brand truth and communications experience to create the perfect connection.”
The agency announced at the end of last week that it was launching as Aegis’ second brand in Australia after Carat. In Melbourne the agency will be a re-badging of Frank Media, while it will be known in Sydney simply as Vizeum.
Street stenciling, originally the work of graffiti artists, have become increasingly attractive to brands looking for low cost media and to connect with an urban audience. Other brands to have done it recently in Australia include Virgin Mobile and Absolut vodka.
But city councils have been cracking down. It was reported yesterday that City of Sydney Council is currently examining a graffiti campaign by Warner Music on behalf of Green Day.
The bosses of agencies involved in illegal ambient activities can find themselves in court. In the UK, the CEO of one of the country’s leading ambient agencies was served with an Anti Social Behaviour Order over flyposting activities.
The activities of FrankVizeum has already drawn criticism. One comment on Thomas’s blog post from “Melbourne citizen” was:
“I just have to say how lame and annoying it is to have your stupid f*cking stencil out the front of my house. Your lame attempt to be cool and hip by using such a medium is just pathetic. You are a big multi-national corporation, you will never be cool or hip. Go away and please don’t pollute my streets with your advertising again.”
Aegis boss Lee Stephens said:
“There were no chalk stencils outside private residences, unless the ‘Melbourne Citizen’ now lives at their media agency. For the record, this is also against council regulations.”
A spokesman for City of Sydney Council told Mumbrella: “It’s classified as graffiti, which is illegal.”
- Vizeum – Warriors of wank?
- From the Lipstick Ladiez blog: “Sorry ad wankers, not going to happen. Big corporations using graffiti is both embarrassing to them and insulting to actual artists. No cred earned for that campaign.”
- “Far be it from little old me to tell a global media agency how to go about their business, but perhaps they might want to get a copywriter to look at their PR releases.” Stan Lee, Brand DNA
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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You just know this is going to end well… not.
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just what we need … they want to challenge accepted norms like “not breaking the law”
agencies who get caught doing illegal stencil campaigns should be forced to cleanup the stencils and their managers made to do community service
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1st rule of guerilla street promotion : Don’t Claim It!
(unless you’re Banksy)
That’s kinda like robbing a bank and then putting you’re hand up and saying “oh yeah, sorry, that was us”
I love their blog post that has a photo of the ‘graffiti” next to the introduction of:
“Being part of Vizeum’s Global Network brings with it all sorts of BIG numbers…we’re now have 47 offices in 36 countries totalling over 2,500 staff with billings of US$5 Billion plus.”
Why don’t you just invite a law suite on yourself.
FAIL.
…will be interesting to see if Warners get out unscathed too.
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Saw it last week out the front of Mediacom in Melbourne. Chalk stencils… would be surprised if they are seen as vandalism.
Had no idea what it was and thought the name was pants, but I remembered it…. shit, does that make me a 48.76 percenter?
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Bravo for trying but could Vizeum have found a legal way to get us talking about them?
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The one outside our agency isn’t even done very well – I had no idea what it said until now.
Please come and clear your mess up
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Oh goody a new target for the real stencil artists to poke fun at! I can’t think of anything more beautiful and poetic than stencil wars between artists and advertising agencies. The exploiters exploited, come on people get creative and smear these campaigns! Stencil team assemble & ATTACK!
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Woah. Cutting edge from 1995.
I used to chalk footpaths to promote my club nights and parties then subsequently hire chalkartists to do large inner city areas in the dead of night to promote music festivals circa 2000-5 in NZ.
If it’s done with chalk, fine. If it’s done with paint, that would make it more like pollution/litter/vandalism.
All sorts of new business opportunities doing community service tho, right?
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I think its effective, illegal, but effective all the same. We pulled this off last year for a backpacker branded campaign and chalk stenciled a whole heap of hostel entrance footpaths. It worked for the 1-2 days the stencil’s existed, because they were chalk, wind, water and feet eventually rub them off. Chalks a more effective and less illegal alternative i guess.
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The torrential rain in Sydney over the weekend didn’t help. They’re illegible as well as unintelligible now. 48.76% for an interesting idea though i’d be interested in hearing frankly whether it worked or not….
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Hi Wilhaus,
Looking at Media Tree’s website, it appears to be sprayed chalk.
However, that’s not as temporary as it sounds. One of the case studies they feature on the Media tree website is the long defunct Absolut BikeStand, which we’ve previously written about: https://mumbrella.com.au/absolut-in-bikestand-stunt-286. A year or so after being placed on Cleveland St in Sydney, the fading remains of that one are still there, as one more blight on an already ugly road.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
RE: the comment about ‘1st rule of guerilla promotion – don’t claim it’.
It’s not always a good idea to be over-clever and underground. As Banksy, the world’s most famous (and richest) graffiti artist would testify.
Also, I didn’t know there were rules – what are the other ones?
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“We fuse audience motivation, brand truth and communications experience to create the perfect connection”
Come on. This is no different to everyone elses story, just a little late (refer to the MFA’s and what awards are given for).
“Perfect connection”??? It made no sense for starters and pissed various parties off.
“It is time for change and for clients to get more from their communications” – what like an old, unoriginal idea? Execution that is out of touch with the market? Some serious lack of insight has been shown here.
Clearly out of touch and a positioner that is 5 years behind the market.
Cool things tick boxes and look good in a pitch, but clients are waking up to the inefficiencies of these activities.
Lets face up to the responsibility of clever communication.
It would be good to see the industry move away from labelling stunts and promotions as anthing more than what they are, stunts and promotions.
Chalk the sidewalks …. it looks like mud on your name.
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The wizards of wank are quickly becoming the idiots of communication. In terms of brand promotion they are failing their own objectives. Yes, it is important to stand out in a crowded market. But your brand has to mean something that resonates with intended audiences and meets your presumabley, commercial objectives. If you are positioning yourself as an idiot, but kinder bend the rules idiots, then the best this outfit will do is to position itself as, I guess, idiots.
Here today. Gone tomorrow.
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How embarrassing. Like my friend said: “Big corporations using graffiti is both embarrassing to them and insulting to actual artists. No cred earned for that campaign.”
On the other side it’s a shame that bill postering and chalking are seen as graffiti and punishable by law. Sydney is claiming that it wants more cultural draw but these laws strips color and culture from the city
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WFT? We now have agencies declaring that they will break the law and apply graffiti? Those agencies should be slammed with as high a fine as legally possible for every single piece of graffiti.
It’s not just about saying ‘Oh, it’s only a chalk stencil, it will wash off’ – it’s about not defacing streets and walls and buildings in the first place.
The councils should totally slam these wankers for every dollar they can, AND order the agency to remove the graffiti – which would be great footage for the evening news, as part of the council’s effort to make sure the fine and clean-up it becomes news in order to shame both the agency and the client.
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I prefer graffiti over adverts myself. Death to advertising.
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@kevin macmillan
yes, there is a code of conduct on the streets between people who put up posters, and graffiti artists. it’s an unwritten law.
Rule #2 : Don’t put a poster over a poster that still has a current date. You must wait till the date has past till covering up a poster.
although in Sydney, this doesn’t apply. London is a much better city for this. Lots of opportunity.
My own personal tip is to ride a push bike, therefore you can outrun cops on foot, and go where cars can’t go. That rule has saved me many ASBO’s
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What’s an ASBO?
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ASBO = Anti Social Behaviour Order
http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/512410/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.....iour_Order
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by the way, how long until someone chalks next to their chalk with some clever message? isnt that what usually happens?
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Why is it that Green Day thinks it’s cool to graffiti the streets of Sydney? One of the world’s biggest bands has enough marketing dollars to buy any billboard in Sydney it wants. In today’s advertising market it could probably buy all of them.
The answer is simple. Green Day wants to project an edgy image and someone at an advertising agency has thought there’s no better way to do that than getting out the spray paint and putting their advertising message up next to graffiti tags.
Not that Green Day have actually done this in person, no, instead they have paid someone to do the “graffiti” for them. And they haven’t come up with anything edgy, they have just paid to have the Green Day album cover for 21st Century Breakdown reproduced. A pretty straightforward way of achieving free (or close to free )advertising in a cool urban setting. Or so someone obviously thinks.
According to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, Warner Music’s defense is that it paid someone who they thought had permission to do so, a “legal graffiti” company who can paint in designated spots. That is, they thought that a company has rights to spray paint ads on Sydney’s walls and to spray stencils on skate parks.
You have to wonder at this. Right or wrong the argument for legal graffiti locations is that if Council designates spots where graffiti is allowed it will not only encourage graffiti with a higher aesthetic value it will also lower the incidence of graffiti on other locations where it defaces public and private property.
Councils do not allocate designated locations for graffiti so multi millionaire bands can advertise their albums on them.
And is it possible that anyone with any common sense thought otherwise? If it is legal to spray paint your advertising message all over the streets of Sydney why isn’t everyone doing it? With the economic downturn there are any number of companies that are struggling to make budget and marketing budgets are getting squeezed. If this was legal every marketer worth their salt would be in on the act.
If Warner Music had bought eight standard inner city billboard locations across Sydney the cost would be in excess of $200,000 a month. One suspects that the “legal graffiti” company isn’t being paid $200,000. And one also suspects that the “legal graffiti” company isn’t passing on any of the money it collected from Warner Music to the City of Sydney or Waverley Council.
If Waverley Council and the City of Sydney don’t have an express prohibition on this use of designated graffiti areas for third party advertising could they please let us know. We would also very much like to use a spray can on the streets of Sydney to promote our website and we promise to be arty when doing so.
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I must take my hat off to Vizeum, this is a genius way to attract graffiti crews to do some work on the walls of your offices. And don’t worry no need to pay them, also they won’t be taking credit for it so feel free to spin it as you wish. Do note they may be more legitimate in their approach and wish to use spray paint over chalk.
You clearly know what you are doing, very imaginative.
EPIC FAIL.
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LOL I wanted to read this article because I can’t believe the ad agency would claim responsibility for an illegal act! If you want to challenge traditional media and strategies, take a page from Perez Hilton and John Mayer: http://greatstrategy.blogspot......ilton.html
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Did they only graffiti in front of the offices of other Media agencies ?? Interesting placement – don’t they know that most clients don’t bother to leave their offices anymore… or was this an even more subtle attempt at recruitment …?
Confusing.
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Penalties for graffiti include up to five years in jail, according to the NSW government.
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I’m looking for an artist to do a pretty straight shop front.
I thought i might be able to gainfully employ a graffitti artist to do the job instead of using an established firm.
Please email contact details if interested.
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Peter, you’ve not left your contact details…
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