On Street Art in Marketing

Thanks to a recent work meeting, I've had to pay a bit more attention to tattooing and street art.

So needless to say, I was thrilled when I came across this fantastic little feature on PingMag.

It's an interview with Excusado Printsystem, a Columbian art collective geared at making art inventions in Bogata. It got me thinking about the recent craze on using street art in advertising. Pepsi Co.'s recent launch of the Green Label Art, for its Mountain Dew drink.

What I love about that campaign is what you never see in the ads, the partnership with the artists. These artists, who might never reach the audience that Mountain Dew can provide are getting a chance to have their work seen (whether you think the artist is "selling out" or not is irrelevant to me - artists and designers have to eat too!).

There seems to be a resurgence in allowing outsiders to have a crack at logos, designs and campaigns, and I like the spirit behind it. But it needs to be done very, very carefully. There's a cred that goes with graffiti and tattooing. And if you're going to allow people who claim they're "artists" a shot at shaping your brand, you'd better be damn sure they're legit and they're not going to blow it.

Today's appreciators of "urban" and "street" (whatever you want to call it) culture have a finely tuned bull shit detector.

Mountain Dew has always been branded pretty well in my opinion. They latched onto the X-Games before the X-Games were cool and use their sponsorship bucks very well. Nice to see they worked with some legit artists here as well.

At any rate, check out all of the above. Any thoughts on use of "Street Art" in a campaign?