Hamburg event: Building a counter-advertising movement across Europe
Friday 9th May 2025, 1900hrs
@ Jupi Bar, Caffamacherreihe 37, Hamburg, DE 20355, Germany
With Hamburg Werbefrei collecting thousands of signatures for a referendum to remove digital advertising screens from the city until 13 May 2025, momentum is growing across Europe to restrict the harmful impacts of corporate advertising. Cities such as Zurich, Lyon, Grenoble and Bristol have all passed laws or policies to reclaim public space from outdoor ads screens to improve public health, wellbeing, our climate and environment.
In doing so, they challenge the destructive logic of consumer capitalism and the growth economy; a logic that commodifies our social spaces to create marketing opportunities – whilst extracting more resources from the earth and mental attention from our minds.
Join anti-advertising activists from France, Netherlands and the UK who have traveled to Germany to support the Hamburg Werbefrei initiative. At the event, we will discuss recent victories from across Europe and how we can create happier, healthier and more sustainable cities.
With contributions from:
- Cha Ribaute from Résistance À L’Agression Publicitaire. Founded in 1992, RAP is a network of anti-advertising groups in France which has supported initiatives in Lyon and Grenoble to remove over 500 advertising billboards and ban new digital ad screens.
- Charlotte Braat from Reclame Fossielvrij (Fossil Free Advertising ) in the Netherlands who have been instrumental in securing bans on ads for environmentally-damaging products including in the cities of Amsterdam and The Hague.
- Robbie Gillett from Badvertising and Adfree Cities – a network of anti-advertising groups in the UK who have blocked the construction of over 500 advertising screens and supported municipal governments to prohibit adverts for fossil fuel companies, SUVs, junk food and other harmful products.
Co-hosted with Hamburg Werbefrei.
