I came across this “sidewalk marketing” story from Cockeyed.com, submitted by a Minnesota resident. Check out the sleazy actions of Guerilla Marketing group Alt Terrain, memorable for littering New York with Windows butterflies a few years back.

Their “boo yah in your face” site is an excellent primer on how to recognize bullshit consumer intrusion. Through viral marketing, blog “seeding”, LEGAL graffiti and LITTERING, and “Pop up Stores” (basically walking out your front door and finding a bunch of “brand ambassadors” read salespeople, hawking whatever), they are turning city streets into a sea of flea markets and pop up ads, and people accept it and rarely question the process.

This drive of overbearing and intrusive advertising is as much the fault of local governments who allow visual eyesores like this to mushroom around their cities, as it is the marketing companies themselves. Unlike radio or television, it’s impossible to turn this off, and the visual and audio clutter should not be tolerated.

This crap (pictured from Alt Terrain’s site) IS litter, just like “Work from Home” and “Condos this way” signs that are all over cities. Take them down, throw them away, and tell your local city leadership you DON’T support a free pass for companies to make your city look like a flea market. (Like coroplast signs, eventually all this shit blows away and becomes garbage).

According to BadAds.org here’s what constitutes a bad ad and qualifies as intrusive:

1. You can’t turn it off. You can close a magazine and turn off the television, but billboards tower overhead night and day.

2. It enters your home without permission. Pardon me, Mr. Telemarketer, may I see your invitation?

3. You’re a captive audience. This can be in schools, in movie theaters, at a urinal, or waiting for your receipt at the ATM.

4. It doesn’t support anything, or it costs you money. Radio ads support free programming, but you pay, directly or indirectly, for faxed ads and junk e-mail.

Internet savvy folks who read blogs and product reviews already know how to spot “seed” planters and viral marketers, and are quick ignore them. So why NOT do the same in your neighborhoods? Internet operators and board moderators are quick to remove spam postings, so be the “moderator” of your neighborhood and throw this trash away. Clean up YOUR neigbhorhood of spam, just as you would delete your in-box of it. More information on removing spam and ugly litter check out www.causs.org (Citizens against Ugly Street Spam). Hell the term “Viral Marketing” even SOUNDS sleazy. Don’t let it infect your brain.