Branded art partnerships
Wednesday, September 24th, 2008As I was writing up a post for our sister site, ThingsAmongMany this morning, a thought hit me regarding branded art partnerships and their prevalence in advertising…
The lines between art and advertising have been a blur for as long as either has existed. The cycle of one borrowing from the other, borrowing back has been a never-ending process that has spurred both amazing breakthroughs as well as bitter fights – just look at the popular case of Sony vs. kozyndan. But lately, the notion of branded artwork has made a jump to the forefront. Scion commissioned popular artists to contribute to their Want 2 B Square campaign. Microsoft has made similar efforts for their Zune and Xbox branding. A slew of other brands that seem to allude me for the moment have also jumped at the trend.
The latest I’ve noticed, and perhaps the best use of branded artwork that I’ve seen to date, is a recent effort from Green Works, a brand that creates plant-based, environmentally friendly cleaning products. Green Works commissioned British graffiti artist Moose to create a 140 foot long mural in San Francisco’s Broadway tunnel. The catch? Moose doesn’t work with the standard spray paints and wheat paste. His work is called reverse graffiti.
Invented by Paul “Moose” Curtis, a then kitchen-hand in Leeds, reverse grafitti is the process of creating artwork on a surface by cleaning it. Not quite clear? Have a look at Symbollix, Moose’s agency for creating branded works of reverse grafitti or watch this vid on the San Fran project:
Of course, branded artwork has a downside sometimes as well. It’s often considered “selling out”. It associates a brand with a specific artist’s work and often creates an image for the brand that it simply can’t live up to. Of course, those brands can afford to pay for that image and the artists are agreeing to its use (most of the time). What do you think? Should the trend continue?
