…or how punk monk propaganda cracked the marketer’s code.
not long after midday yesterday a woman i'd never seen before came to the corner shop door [punk monk propaganda HQ]. she was a non-descript yet attractive blonde in her mid 30s with kindly mischief in her eyes. she asked for confirmation of my address. curious whilst cautiously hoping to avoid a court summons [which has happened before] i agreed that she did indeed have the correct address and yes, i am victoria waghorn AKA AWOL MONK.
she then handed me an old gun metal green box with an apparently worn tag bearing my name & promptly disappeared into the gentrified industrial scape.
carrying the box inside to the studio where fellow punk monk, felix & i had previously been working i opened the box after turning over the tag which said “more to come…”
this is what i found:
with heart in mouth following the instructions on the unrolled parchment, i ventured onto the interwebs & with great intrigue skipped along after the virtual trail of crumbs expecting to find my dear versatile talented oft bereft punk monks at the very end. turn up the sound…
tears bled from my eyes thinking my wildest wet dreams of deity-appointed special selection in true bi-polar episodic fantasia in a post-apocalyptic world had finally materialised. i am the chosen one. no matter what happened next this had to be the most excellent intermedia PR launch which reeked of punk monk-esque MO even after realising that the awesome flash could be modified so perhaps it wasn’t all about me after all. reality check. not a clever undisclosed ambush campaign by my people, my kind perhaps after all, but eerily close to our developing strategies. who are we to copyright rather than left?
text from site splash reads: on thursday october 1 2009, selected blogs and sites received the first of two packs that will unravel the story of birds vs humans. be watchful and stay alert. your kind needs you.
what ensued upon viewing the site was an afternoon of collaborative punk monk interwebs investigation. many sites and leads were trawled as 2 + 2 was added and we attacked the horse by the jugular bypassing the mouth: net result = result. as X files, mulder says : the truth is out there [but might not be for long if they follow our advice].
the crumbs led to graffiti tags around the city [2 have been observed outside punk monk’s corner shop in alexandria] which were first observed a few weeks back when we were in possible world’s magic mushroom party graffiti launch mode ourselves, at the time it was passed off as a related test by an errant monkey… here’s the remnants of ours:
by yesterday afternoon i knew who was behind the viral campaign without still being fully aware what product exactly this elaborate slew was being deigned to launch using an army of underground social media hipsters like myself integrally tied to the gutter zeitgeist as far afield as berlin to sydney. i’m still surprised so far that we at punk monk are not only the first but only peeps to crack the birds versus humans [before selling out].
we salute your illegality & disrespect for rules in true independent eco-terrorist guerrilla spirit. graffiti is art. the joy of opening a mystery box filled with objects from a forest floor is unparalleled. especially when coupled with zombie pics & a nest of freshly laid speckled eggs. my inner child does somersaults to your beat thus remains impossibly still with sealed lips on the sidelines.
existing media channels are for suckers and neglect to burgeon independent lateral thought. punk monk strongly support utilising intermedia waves as championed through our monthly subculture serial events: ALGAE RHYTHM. the marketers mirror our tricks & did it in a way that does not outshine garishly. hat tip. i wondered briefly whether we should feel used, our identity compromised… but instead embrace the universal consciousness & hug it tighter.
today i spoke to the savvy street smart identities behind the clever branding device which has firmly enconsed itself into the popular tweeting vernacular by creating desire, what any ingenious marketing ploy aims to achieve but increasingly fails at in originality in an oversaturated ADD ridden universe. after congratulating the underground niche sydney agency on their awesome campaign, i led into a brief admonishment on their clumsiness [what others called arrogance] in failing to cover their splattered bird shit which didn’t just land on selected blogger’s individualised flash site pix. obviously they need us on their team. ;)
as a lover of magic and ardent admirer of outside social media strategies, i have agreed not to destroy the campaign and traded off our cooperation but can confirm as we all know it is a heinously sexy viral campaign to launch… something. more will be revealed before the 12.10 which is this coming monday. more of the survivalist trail of the armageddon-like reality of birds vs humans will be found on a television near you this sunday prime time. and then the next wave to bloggers like myself will roll in the day after…
i have my roll of gaffer tape & interrogation lamp ready for when that sexy blonde arrives back on my doorstep. but first this cuckoo will have to get off my fine clutch of eggs. perhaps on monday they’ll begin to hatch?
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