Earlier this summer, we posted about how London underground changed its typeface after more than 100 years – this time a group of creative people who want to use creativity for good, called Glimpse, took over a whole station to change all the adverts to pictures of cats. Their first project, cleverly labelled as Citizen’s Advertising Takeover Service (C.A.T.S), might look like a clever marketing stunt for a cat-food brand, or a guerrilla campaign for a TV series, but is rather a successful Kickstarter campaign by a group of friends and cat lovers from London who want to inspire people to “think differently about the world and realise they have the power to change it”.
Glimpse, an open and voluntary group, launched their courageous campaign to take-over London’s Underground station Clapham Common with pictures of humanity’s ever-popular feline friends back in May this year and starting Monday 9th September commuters passing through the station are able to see final posters that feature real stray cats that are in a need of home. Glimpse doesn’t only want to make the Tube station look amazing, give travellers time-off from being asked to buy stuff, but also to help lost cats find homes.
Glimpse Collective’s founder, James Turner, explains that “the team began thinking about crowdfunding to replace Tube adverts with something else. Beautiful forests? Time spent with family? Hmmm. We wanted this to become famous, so we needed something the internet would love. Frame it that way and the answer’s obvious. Cats.” He also adds to their motives that “it is important to say that [Glimpse Collective] is not against advertising. We need creativity more than ever, to open our eyes to new ways of looking at the world and thinking about our place within it. We want agencies and brands to be mindful of the power they wield and to use it to encourage positive values in society. Things like empathy and tolerance, community and togetherness deserve to be at the heart of our culture.”
Starting with the gateways to the Underground, tunnel walls, escalators, and all the way to advertising space within platforms, you can get all mushy and admire cats that are featured in this takeover. They all come from two sources: UK’s largest feline welfare charity, Cats Protection, and Battersea animal rescue centre that has over 150 years of experience and expertise in rehoming dogs and cats; and since its foundation in 1860 it has rescued, reunited and rehomed over 3.1 million of dogs and cats. And although the Cats Protection charity helps over 200,000 cats and kittens each year, they unfortunately still have thousands of unwanted cats and kittens in desperate need of new homes. If you are interested in adopting a cat, you can visit their website here.
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