My recent trip to Grenoble, France had
Andre the Giant on my mind (figuratively, of course).
The linkage wasn't due to Andre's origins in the Alpine
region, instead, it was a gentle reminder that
Andre the Giant has a posse, as evidenced by de facto
street art in the form of stickers on buildings, signs, and
the occasional NJ Turnpike toll booth. While in Grenoble,
I was talking about social networking, memes, and
how ideas spread through culture electronically and
physically, and the shout out to Shep Fairey seemed
obvious.
After various wrangling over the use of Andre the Giant's
name, Fairey generated the propaganda style
Obey Giant stickers.
A social movement without a cause, and a healthy brand to boot
(You can pick up a book of Shep Fairey's street art at
the appropriately themed Urban Outfitters).
All of this professional wrestling and pop
art culture flotsam were swirling around in a half-written
blog entry until I saw my first guerilla-marketing, eco-friendly
meme in the men's room at Nola in Palo Alto. This appears
to be a beta release of the sticker available at the
These Come From Trees blog. A bit of civil disobedience
combined with a healthy respect for the environment. The
current version of the sticker is decidedly
more eye-catching at first glance, and likely to at least
cause a pause if not a healthy non-action toward paper
products. It's a union of the two best idea
vectors around: green thinking and bathroom humor.
It's this kind of in-your-face, inopportune moment art that makes people consider the second and third order effects of their actions. What better way to change consumption than at the point of consumption? Marketing has warned me that putting up pictures of cute and cuddly Antarctic creatures with the slogan "Processors or Penguins: You Decide" is a bit too obscure in terms of energy usage and its effects on global warming, but you get the idea.