Brands Are Jumping All Over Banksy’s Art-Shredding Stunt

Last week, Banksy went viral as one of his paintings self-destructed—shredding itself into ribbons and dumping the remains from the bottom of the frame—after being auctioned for $1.1 million. (As the anonymous artist explained on Instagram, the stunt had been planned years in advance.) Immediately, the auctioneers at Sotheby's began discussing whether the shredding had made the painting more valuable, and someone with a limited-edition Banksy print has already shredded it in an effort to increase its value. As you can imagine, it failed miserably.

But an entirely unrelated group also made moves to capitalize on the shredding: Brands, willing as ever to co-opt any movement or trend, have already begun to turn Banksy's stunt into marketing, Adweek reported Wednesday.

Perrier's attempt is a bit confusing:

Japanese menswear brand Mazu Resortwear shredded one of its own patterns:

The senior creative director at TWBA—the creative agency responsible for many McDonald's campaigns—designed his own version of the stunt:

IKEA Norway spoofed the idea in an Instagram post:

Perhaps most anachronistically, insurance brand Lemonade—without recognizable iconography to shred to the halfway mark—simply made a slightly augmented version of Banksy's Girl with Balloon and shredded it to reveal a peekaboo advertisement in the back. Whatever:

Brands, they're just like us—they love memes but never make any good ones.

Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.

Follow Nicole Clark on Twitter.