Kalle Lasn

In the late 1960s, he founded a market research company in Tokyo, and in 1970, moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Over the course of twenty years, he produced documentaries for PBS and Canada’s National Film Board. He currently resides in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is the co-founder of Adbusters magazine and author of the books Culture Jam and Design Anarchy and is the co-founder of the Adbusters Media Foundation, which owns the magazine. He reportedly started Adbusters after an epiphany that there was something profoundly wrong with consumerism. It happened in a supermarket parking lot. Frustrated that he had to insert a quarter to use a shopping cart, he jammed a bent coin in so that the machine became inoperable. This act of vandalism was his first (quite literal) "culture jam"—defined as an act designed to subvert mainstream society.

• Name — Kalle Lasn • Born — 24 March 1942 • Birthplace — Tallinn, Estonia • Spouse — Masako Tominaga • Known for — Adbusters, culture jamming • Occupation — co-founder of Adbusters Media Foundation

Born in Tallinn, Estonia, during World War II, Lasn's family fled to Germany and he spent several years after the war in a displaced-persons camp before his family were offered resettlement in Australia. In Australia he earned a degree in applied mathematics and then relocated to Tokyo, where he spent five years running his own market-research firm before eventually immigrating to Canada in 1970. Lasn’s life works are applied within the philosophical lens of the French Situationists theory and the philosophy of detournement. His concept pertained to the "rerouting [of] spectacular images, environments, ambiences and events to reverse or subvert their meaning." Lasn has also contemporized the concept of the Spectacle, in which he applies to explain the thousands of images encountered by consumers on a daily basis. In an interview with PRWeek magazine, Lasn recalls the moment in 1989, as an environmental campaigner, when he realized that all brands carry a "political message". In response to a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign launched by the forest industry, which sought to reassure the Pacific Northwest that they had nothing to worry about, Lasn and his team developed a 30-second advertisement of their own which would challenge the initial campaign. However, Lasn’s attempt at airing the spot on television ultimately failed, as the TV station refused to sell him any time. Lasn referred to this move as "absurd and unfair" because "even the most innocuous product ad is laden with unspoken and unquestioned political assumptions", adding that no line exists between product and advocacy ads, and that all ads are political.

People Inspired by what he saw as the lack of democracy in access to all-power media, Lasn founded Adbusters, a bi-monthly radicalizing magazine which lends itself the title of one of the leading voices in global environmentalism, anti-capitalist and anti-consumerist movements. Having worked in market research in Japan in the 1960s, Lasn drew from his personal experience and knowledge to produce publications and campaigns that would employ the necessary tools and techniques to create powerful imagery, stunts, slick graphics and vibrant language to promote his cause. By taking conventional marketing communication techniques and applying them to anti-consumerism messages, Adbusters has created a powerful, global social movement, which takes aim at large-scale industries. Although the company’s headquarters in Vancouver only has ten employees, it has a large global following, with 40,000 paper subscribers and 30,000 online subscribers. Lasn claims that ‘’Adbusters" is the "hub of global activism – it’s the (communication) model of the future".

Lasn, in collaboration with others of Adbusters, came up with the original idea for an Occupy Wall Street (OWS) demonstration, but has been careful not to claim ownership of it. In a CBC TV interview, Lasn described OWS as an example of radical democracy and suggested a local movement might emerge, perhaps Occupy Main Street.

In March 2004, Lasn published an article in Adbusters entitled "Why Won't Anyone Say They Are Jewish?", establishing a link between Jewish groups who do not explicitly announce their religion and ultimate control of United States foreign policy. In the article, he listed George W. Bush-era neoconservatives who he believed were Jews. According to Lasn, less than two percent of Americans are Jewish, while 26 of the top 50 Bush-era neoconservatives who advocated war in Iraq were Jewish (52 percent). In 2010, Lasn's magazine published a photo montage comparing the WWII Warsaw Ghetto to the Gaza Strip.