Adbusters Media Foundation is a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who are building a new social activist movement for the information age. Many of you will know them from their eye-popping and irreverent magazine, Adbusters. As part of their strategy for the 12th annual Buy Nothing Day, their goal was to air a 30-second "uncommercial" on the CNN television network during a prime-time slot. 
The uncommercial would include a message about over-consumption and would air during the prime-time Lou Dobbs Moneyline show. The cost for the time slot is $18,400. Buy Nothing Day is an eco-holiday celebrated around the world. In North America, Buy Nothing Day always falls on the day after Thanksgiving, which is the biggest shopping day of the year. This year's festivities took place on November 29.
To help pay for the uncommercial, Adbusters combined its formidable international network of supporters and its creative Internet savvy which includes a Groundspring.org DonateNow button. "We went out to our list of 70,000 member Culture Jammers list and asked for support to pay for the uncommercial," recalls Lara Honrado of Adbusters. "Also, we wanted them to help us pick among the two uncommercials we had produced." With both uncommercials viewable as streaming video clips, 1,800 culture jammers voted to pick the best one. In addition, they contributed $16,000 via the Internet to pay for the prime-time slot. "We had an overwhelming positive response to this campaign," says Honrado. "The online gifts, plus some money raised offline from some of our individual supporters helped us pay for the ad." Adbusters Media Foundation aired their uncommercial on CNN on November 26, 2002, at 6:49pm ET, reaching over 1 million viewers.
Pioneering the idea of fundraising money to buy airtime, Adbusters Media Foundation is planning to air more TV 
uncommercials in 2003 and launch their Nike "Rethink the Cool" billboard campaign fund.
Visit Adbusters Media Foundation's culture jammer headquarters and view the uncommercial at http://www.adbusters.org/
