In London, a poster campaign invites you to stick gum on Boris Johnson's face

As newly elected British Prime Minster Boris Johnson tours the country trying to persuade people of the benefits of a No Deal Brexit, Londoners are being encouraged to vent their frustrations by sticking chewing gum on posters of his face.

The flyposters, which carry the hashtag #stickittotheman, are appearing today all over London including in areas such as Shoreditch, Old Street and Clerkewell beloved of the creative community. They are the work of agency Don't Panic, which claims it created them with a dual purpose: both to help people protest about former Mayor of London Johnson, who's so far not been elected by the people but by members of the Conservative party, and to solve problem of chewing gum littering -- as the agency points out, the Local Government Association reported in 2017 that the clear-up of chewing gum costs councils sixty million pounds. 

Joe Wade, co-founder of Don’t Panic -- which had its roots in student posters before going to create campaigns for the likes of Greenpeace and Save the Children -- says: “We believe agencies shouldn’t just understand and appreciate culture and politics but that they should take part in it on behalf of their clients or for themselves. In this digital age, we forget the power of print and how it can leverage reach; generating PR, particularly when media has a layer of interactivity, that gets people engaged.”

Not every agency in town is totally hating on Brexit though: the campaign comes just as the U.K. government announced a one hundred million pound marketing campaign to prepare the country for a No Deal Brexit in October. Engine has been appointed to the brief, touted as the biggest in U.K government adspend history.