News

Swapping the spray can for the cleaning solution

Fundraising | 2 Jan 2008

Graffiti artists only tend to clear up after themselves when they are caught and told to do community service, but when charities do graffiti they carry cleaning materials, not spray cans.

Homelessness charity Crisis launched a guerrilla marketing campaign this month in London using a technique called reverse graffiti, where a section of a dirty wall is cleaned leaving a shape that stands out in bright white (pictured).

Crisis’ campaign uses an image of a huddled homeless person, created using a distortion of the words ‘Most homeless people have moved on but their problems haven’t gone away’.

Under the images, which can be found at 15 sites across London including on Abbey Road, Rowley Way and East Smithfields, there is a website address directing people to the Crisis website and on to a microsite set up as part of a new fundraising campaign called ‘Seeing is Believing’.

The campaign highlights the work the charity does around the year and not just at Christmas. The site, which is being accompanied by national press inserts and promotion through social networking sites Facebook and MySpace, invites people to read stories from people Crisis has helped, before asking them to make a regular monthly donation.

A spokesman for Crisis said the charity had not sought permission from the authorities to carry out the campaign because reverse graffiti was a “legal grey area” as it involved cleaning the wall, rather than spraying it. A stencil is used, though the charity would not divulge the composition of the cleaning solution, citing it as a “trade secret” .

However, no Crisis staff got the chance to test out their tagging techniques, and the actual work was done by guerrilla marketing company Mad Media working with Crisis’ marketing agency WWAV Rapp Collins London.

Andrew Page, director of fundraising at Crisis, said: “This campaign seeks to highlight that, while there are less visible signs of homelessness, the problem remains a major one and it’s imperative we get public backing that will allow us to continue to offer the help and support that can literally lead to many men and women rebuilding their lives.”

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Directory: Crisis