Adbusters Challenges Essay

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Adbusters has faced many challenges throughout its existence. Many of these challenges stem from the fact that they are a non profit organization, Kalle Lasn did a sit down with reporter Erin Middlewood discussing the financial woes of Adbusters: "We were losing circulation," says Kalle Lasn, Adbusters' co-founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief. "The Internet was eating into our sales. We were swimming in red ink," Lasn said. "I was having to borrow money to keep the place going. It felt like we were sort of fading." (Middlewood 32) As a organization that preaches for consumers to stop spending and save money, it proved hard for them to raise money and awareness at the time. They obtain funds by people subscribing to the magazine, donating …show more content…

The challenge was, how could they offer products to people while preaching against consumerism? These products would have to go through a different manufacturing process and offer some sort of beneficial need towards cultural activism. They achieved this by offering up products that stand for cultural activism and against corporations (such as the Corporate Flag). Another challenge that Adbusters has faced is that they’ve grown immensely. Although growth is usually a good thing, the image of Adbusters has been criticized of resembling the people they fight against. They started out as small campaign and have exploded in the last 10 years, so much so that they have multiple revenue streams, such as the store (as mentioned above). This really contradicts what they are fighting against and have had taking a lot of flak explaining their reasoning. Adbusters also walks a fine line with their messages. With the Buy Nothing Campaign/Occupy Xmas, they’re essentially telling people how to spend there hard earned money. Needless to say, they received a lot of negative response. Adbuster’s takes an aggressive, honest approach to sending messages and people will take them

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