Advertising is, at its best, a way for business to let us know about their products and services. At its worst, advertising is a manipulative and predatory practice that erodes our sense of humanity and community.

In January 2005, Steve Lambert and the Anti-Advertising Agency accepted my proposal for a bus bench project. The Agency provided a grant, development meetings, installation strategies, and many other forms of support. With the help of a focus group we chose eleven main manipulative tactics commonly used by advertisers. From this information I drew a series of anti-advertisements for Oakland bus benches.

Members of the community chose the content for their local bench by filling out a brief survey about negative advertising tactics. This survey was taken door to door within a one-block radius of each target bus bench. We talked with people on the street and left the postage paid survey at every home and business in that one-block area. The results were then tallied, and the largest average concern dictated which anti-ad was placed at that particular bus stop. In this way, the people who live nearest the bench were able to decide on the content. This process was repeated for each target bench. We targeted benches in nine different districts of Oakland. The ads were covertly installed in the spring of 2006.