The Recession 101 ad Campaign – who’s paying for it?

Jessica Pressler over at the Daily Intel blog has a really cool story about an outdoor ad campaign that is being run across the country but no-one has any idea who’s behind it, or paying for it. Well Jeff Golimowski from the Outdoor Advertising Association of America knows but he isn’t telling. According to him the ad are running on donated space by the association because they think it’s a really cool idea.

As you can see from the picture they are all headlined with “Recession 101” and as they say at the website for the campaign – “Recession 101 isn’t selling anything other than the American spirit,”. The billboards were design by Florida-based designer named Charlie Robb on behalf of “an anonymous East Coast donor who was depressed about how the country was reacting to the economy’s tailspin”, and now number around 2,000.

The only other thing we know about them comes from Robb as well

“I’m not trying to be coy about this but I have a responsibility to honor my client’s wishes,” he said.”The client wants to remain anonymous out of a belief that you don’t do public service for recognition. I found that commendable. Altruism, apparently, isn’t dead.”

Everyone from the Obama Administration to Goldman Sachs has been cleared out of the way of being responsible for the campaign. I almost hope we don’t find out.