'Adbusters' magazine- Introduction to the magazine

The magazine are a not for profit and pro environment magazine. They are against consumerism and are anti-capitalist. They were created in 1989 by Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz in Vancouver, British Columbia. 

The magazine works to spread awareness on their views of consumerist cultures.

Adbusters describe themselves as anti-advertising and they blame advertising as a central factor in creating and maintaining the consumerist culture we live in. They are known for their spoof-adverts which make fun of adverts for brands.

Adbusters describes itself as "a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age."

They have launched numerous campaigns including:  Buy Nothing Day, TV Turnoff Week and Occupy Wall Street.

In English they have a bi-monthly American, Canadian, Australian, UK and International editions of each issue. Adbusters's sister organizations include Résistance à l'Aggression Publicitaire and Casseurs de Pub in France, Adbusters Norge in Norway, Adbusters Sverige in Sweden and Culture Jammers in Japan.

In 1999 Adbusters won the award for National Magazine of the year in Canada.

One of Adbusters main campaigns was the Blackspot shoes campaign. In this the company created shoes that were vegan and indy. They were open source which meant they had no logo or private trademarks. Each pair had a leaflet asking customers to join and the movement and 'Rethink the Cool', each pair also had two spots- one for designing their own logo and one for 'kicking corporate ass'. They used a small union shop in Portugal to manufacture the shoes as they wanted some where which didn't support sweatshops. The campaign was to prove that running a ethical and environmentally responsible company was possible after spending years disagreeing with companies such as Nike, McDonalds, Starbucks.

The company has also faced legal issues. The company had adverts made to be shown on TV however television companies refused to show them as they went against everything TV represents. The situation was taken to court as Adbusters believed they had reasons to have there adverts shown.On 3 April 2009, the British Columbia Court of Appeal unanimously overturned a BC Supreme Court ruling that had dismissed the case in February 2008. The court granted Adbusters the ability to sue the Canadian Broadcasting Company and CanWest Global, the corporations that originally refused to air the anti-car ad "Autosaurus". 

 The subtitle of Adbusters magazine is "The Journal of the Mental Environment."

In a 1996 interview, Kalle Lasn explained the foundation's goal:

What we're trying to do is pioneer a new form of social activism using all the power of the mass media to sell ideas, rather than products. We're motivated by a kind of 'greenthink' that comes from the environmental movement and isn't mired in the old ideology of the left and right. Instead, we take the environmental ethic into the mental ethic, trying to clean up the toxic areas of our minds. You can't recycle and be a good environmental citizen, then watch four hours of television and get consumption messages pumped at you.