Christian Fuchs begins his article by saying how graffiti is being used as a commercial tool by advertisers and brands to earn “young and rebellious image” (Fuchs 2008). Fuchs says this is a paradoxical situation because graffiti culture earned its strength and popularity in 1970s to get back the public spaces from advertisers with the slogan “reclaiming the streets.” He says advertisers and brands can’t reach out to young generation with old version of advertisements, like TV ads and radio spots. Fuchs used advertising professional from TBWA agency how this guerilla marketing is so popular and effective because this way can surprise people when they don’t expect advertisements. Rising of guerilla marketing made advertisers and brands to poach …show more content…
I think guerilla graffiti marketing, that companies and advertisers are using, is a creative way to reach out to both consumers and public. As this guerilla graffiti marketing tactic is becoming a marketing trend, advertisers and companies will try to come up with new and creative ideas to compete. Those new and creative ideas will make consumers and public to understand graffiti and street art. Because many people, who are not in street art or graffiti, tend to see graffiti as a vandalism, guerilla graffiti marketing is a new way to reach out to public without traditional graffiti’s exclusive and aggressive characteristics. Most of graffiti art pieces gave me negative impressions because of its exclusivity. For example, I really hated “Wildstyle” graffiti because it is too complex so public can’t really understand the meaning of Wildestyle graffiti. Only people who are in street arts and graffiti can understand the meaning, and it makes graffiti as an exclusive art only for graffiti artists. For me, it was just a huge colorful scribbling in the public space. However, when I saw some creative graffiti marketing pieces, those graffiti pieces gave me positive impression on graffiti because their creativity and eye-catching way to attract pedestrians. Banksy argued companies and advertisers should not use public spaces for their profit, but I believe it is both artistic and creative if there is a graffiti advertisement which can draw people’s attention without giving any negative impression like wildstyle did to me. Fuchs argued that guerilla graffiti marketing boom is destroying graffiti subculture scene. Heather Mac Donald from the New York Times asked “If your home were tagged during the night without your consent, would you welcome the new addition to your décor or would you immediately call painter, if not the police?” (Donald 2014). She threw the most basic question to people who see graffiti as an art. It is