Editing Subvertising (section)

{{Short description|Parody advertising}}
[[File:Where is your family - due process.jpg|thumb|Two billboards with the same original content; the billboard on the right is an example of subvertising after being vandalized.]]
[[File:Exxtreme Droughts.jpg|thumb|The [[ExxonMobil]] logo as subverted by [[Greenpeace]].]]
{{Anti-consumerism|Theories}}

'''Subvertising''' (a [[portmanteau]] of ''[[subversion (political)|subvert]]'' and ''advertising'') is the practice of making spoofs or [[parody|parodies]] of [[corporation|corporate]] and [[politics|political]] [[advertising|advertisements]].<ref name="state">{{Cite news |first=Alexander |last=Barley |date=May 21, 2001 |title=Battle of the image |work=[[New Statesman]] |url=http://www.newstatesman.com/node/153475 |access-date=2010-12-09}}</ref> The cultural critic [[Mark Dery]] coined the term in 1991.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Dekeyser |first=Thomas |date=2020-08-09 |title=Dismantling the advertising city: Subvertising and the urban commons to come |journal=Environment and Planning D: Society and Space |volume=39 |issue=2 |language=en |pages=309–327 |doi=10.1177/0263775820946755 |issn=0263-7758 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Subvertisements are anti-ads that deflect advertising's attempts to turn the people's attention in a given direction.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dery |first=Mark |url=https://www.markdery.com/books/culture-jamming-hacking-slashing-and-sniping-in-the-empire-of-signs-2/ |title=Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing, and Sniping in the Empire of Signs |publisher=Open Media |year=1993 |location=New York}}</ref> According to author [[Naomi Klein]], subvertising offers a way of speaking back to advertising, ‘forcing a dialogue where before there was only a declaration.’<ref>{{Cite news |last=Klein |first=Naomi |date=8 May 1997 |title=Subvertising: Culture jamming reemerges on the media landscape |work=The Village Voice |url=http://ecumedesjours.com/artjammer.com/jamming_article.html}}</ref> They may take the form of a new image or an alteration to an existing image or icon, often in a [[satire|satirical]] manner.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Bonner |first1=Matt |last2=Raoul |first2=Vyvian |date=2022-11-28 |title=Subvertising: Sharing a Different Set of Messages |url=https://commonslibrary.org/subvertising-sharing-a-different-set-of-messages/ |access-date=2023-03-02 |website=The Commons Social Change Library |language=en-AU}}</ref> 

A subvertisement can also be referred to as a [[meme hack]] and can be a part of [[social hacking]], [[billboard hacking]] or [[culture jamming]].<ref>{{Cite news |date=March 4, 2009 |title=Clearing the Mindscape |work=[[Adbusters]] |url=http://www.adbusters.org/category/tags/subvertising |url-status=dead |access-date=2010-12-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927050110/http://www.adbusters.org/category/tags/subvertising |archive-date=September 27, 2011}}</ref>  Although he rarely altered physical ads, American performance artist [[Joey Skaggs]]' media interventions function as subvertisements. By parodying authoritative narratives and co-opting mass communication tools, he delivers countercultural messages which align with subvertising's intent to disrupt and critique dominant cultural messages using the very channels that propagate them.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Harold |first=Christine |date=2004-09-01 |title=Pranking rhetoric: “culture jamming” as media activism |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0739318042000212693 |journal=Critical Studies in Media Communication |volume=21 |issue=3 |pages=189–211 |doi=10.1080/0739318042000212693 |issn=1529-5036|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

According to ''[[Adbusters]]'', a [[Canada|Canadian]] magazine and a proponent of counter-culture and subvertising, "A well-produced 'subvert' mimics the look and feel of the targeted ad, promoting the classic '[[double-take (comedy)|double-take]]' as viewers suddenly realize they have been duped. Subverts create [[cognitive dissonance]], with the apparent aim of cutting through the '[[:wikt:hype|hype]] and glitz of our mediated reality' to reveal a 'deeper truth within'.{{Citation needed|date=May 2019}}

Subvertising is a type of ''advertising hijacking'' (''détournement publicité''), where [[détournement]] techniques developed in the 1950s by the French [[Letterist International]] and later used by the better-known [[Situationist International]] have been used as a contemporary critical form to re-route advertising messages.