New world advertising - The Bubble project

What started out as an anti-advertising campaign by artist and art director Ji Lee in New York back in 2002 has now developed into an idea with the potential to take ads closer to consumers.

The original aim of the Bubble project was to “counterattack the one-sided corporate onslaught of marketing and advertisement messages that propagate public space”. But far from being subversive, it now it seems to be the way forward.

The Bubble project started when Ji printed 15,000 stickers, die cut into the shape of speech bubbles, and started pasting them onto posters. The passing public then started to add comments to these blank bubbles, of which he then photographed and posted on the web. Yes this could be seen as heavy socio-political stuff, but in our industry surely we need people to challenge us?

In 2006 Ji published a book on the Bubble project called 'Talkback', and rather than attack advertising, he embraced the new era of advertising. By filling in the bubbles, consumers were engaging in the idea and transforming “the corporate monologue into an open dialogue”. In the world of social networking and community engagement this is a brilliant idea. An idea which has now spread globally. In the UK you can join it through Facebook (or type in The Bubble Project (UK) into groups).

But as a brand, or a traditional agency, you could see it two ways. Old school – You are defacing my ad. New school – You are ‘enfacing’ my ad. (Enfacing is a new term for taking something dull, and making it more interesting). Those bubbles on the poster are designed to create social comment. And why not? Shouldn’t customers have a voice?

The idea that we just talk AT the public is fast becoming outdated and irrelevant, and will no doubt freak out many brands and agencies. But the few that want to be progressive will more than likely embrace this as a concept. Surely we should be looking to developed concepts that allow the public to make their message more important than the brands. In fact I think it’s only a matter of time before we see a campaign for a top brand that looks like it’s a victim of the Bubble project, but is in fact manipulating it.

These ideas are making the more innovative minds in adland think. We are living in a world of co-creation and collective thinking, so the idea that consumers can interact with ads has to be the way forward. The old style creative team can be replaced by consumer creativity and a creative director who filters, develops and manages the ideas.

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 could now be questionable.