Bogusky turns his back on the bogus adworld

AdFreak this morning had an article about the other shoe the entire ad industry was waiting to hear drop: What will Alex Bogusky do next?

The former "Elvis of Advertising" is the creative mind behind some of the most outrageous (and wickedly effective) campaigns for Crispin Porter + Bogusky clients like Virgin Airlines, Burger King and Domino's Pizza.

But, as is detailed in this excruciatingly overwritten Fast Company interview, the man who did so much for fast food found that his conscience had caught up with him. He actually hated the industrialization of food. He was anti-GMO. And he gave up eating meat. He even wrote a portion-control diet book critical of "corporate food" interests. So much for the King.

So Bogusky quit CP+B, and advertising altogether. Then he launched "Fearless Revolution". It's a stripped-down activist organization hell-bent of helping consumers gather their forces to fight back against the consumerism that is consuming their lives.

From the site:

Something is definitely happening in our culture.
We think it's a new consumer revolution.

The fact is we all consume to live. The food we put in our bodies, the clothes we put on our backs, the devices we use to do our jobs, and the energy that goes into everything we touch. Together we consume A LOT. Yet our expectations are too low. We think we have to accept the bad that comes with the good. The pollution that comes with the energy. The unsafe working conditions that come with low prices. The toxic materials that come with convenient packaging.

We can do better. Wanting stuff isn't going to change. So maybe it's time to want more – more from ourselves and more from the people who make our stuff. 

The duties of citizen and consumer are colliding.

To be a concerned citizen requires that we become concerned consumers because the reality is, corporations will impact our future as much as governments will. Voting beyond the ballot box with our purchasing power is rapidly becoming a powerful individual tool in the democratic experience.

That's right, kids. Adweek's Creative Director of the Decade is now the anti-adman.

From this:



To this:



And I think that's a good thing.