Occupy Wall Street campaign doesn't have an 'Anna Hazare' leading from the front, but Anna Hazare definitely has been an inspiration for the movement that began in a small office situated in Vancouver, Canada.
"Anna Hazare is one of our heroes and mentors," begins Kalle Lasn, editor and co-founder of Adbusters, as we get into a late night call with him. Not many know that it's from the Adbusters office in Vancouver that the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement began. And the poster of the ballerina balancing on the iconic Wall Street Bull became the first rallying slogan of the movement.
Many credit the 69 year old Estonian who co-founded the not-for-profit anti-branding, social activist organisation, to be the brain behind 'Occupy Wall Street', but he denies it completely. "I am not the leader, but Adbusters has been the creative spark behind the movement," says Lasn, adding that apart from 10 employees, Adbusters depends on creative inputs from writers, photographers and entrepreneurs.
Occupy Wall Street campaign doesn't have an 'Anna Hazare' leading from the front, but Anna Hazare definitely has been an inspiration for the movement that began in a small office situated in Vancouver, Canada.
"Anna Hazare is one of our heroes and mentors," begins Kalle Lasn, editor and co-founder of Adbusters, as we get into a late night call with him. Not many know that it's from the Adbusters office in Vancouver that the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement began. And the poster of the ballerina balancing on the iconic Wall Street Bull became the first rallying slogan of the movement.
Many credit the 69 year old Estonian who co-founded the not-for-profit anti-branding, social activist organisation, to be the brain behind 'Occupy Wall Street', but he denies it completely. "I am not the leader, but Adbusters has been the creative spark behind the movement," says Lasn, adding that apart from 10 employees, Adbusters depends on creative inputs from writers, photographers and entrepreneurs.
But Lasn began putting a spanner in mainstream brand building culture, quite literally, in 1968. The epiphany that consumerism was all wrong happened when Lasn had to insert a coin to use a shopping cart. "I thought why is this big company asking me to do this? I decided to jam the machine with the coin. I stopped going to super markets and instead shopped at smaller neighbourhood stores."
Yet another epiphany happened when Lasn and Bill Schmalz, a cinematographer and also co-founder of Adbusters, went to commercial television stations in Canada. The TV station, says Lasn refused to sell spots to air their TVCs and programmes. "Estonia was not a democracy 50 years ago and back in 1989, when the TV station refused us, we realised, democracy even in a place like Canada, doesn't work if the TVCs have something negative to say about the brands," he adds.
That marked the start of Adbusters and Lasn has acquired a reputation of a hardliner on everything that epitomises branding—- from product to media to advertising. The world, he says, is getting annoyed with the noise in their heads. The noise, he explains is the constant bombardment of brand messages through TVCs. "Today, brands post cool kind of advertising and even project CSR imagery in their communication.
But the target audience, particularly the youth can look through this." The trillion dollar advertising business is in for some turbulent weather in the time to come. 'Maybe after Wall Street, we will have a go with Occupy Mad Ave," he laughs. And it could well begin with just a hash-tag.
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