Kid Hazo Clowns “Woke” Oat Milk Company Minor Figures for Destroying Local Art

This morning, Philly’s own street art legend Kid Hazo installed Major Failures, a new wheatpaste calling out the London-based oat milk brand Minor Figures for destroying the work of local street artists and muralists around Philly this past weekend.

Kid Hazo installed at 7th and Bainbridge Streets, one of several locations around Philly that this poorly-thought-out marketing camping tried to co-opt for their advertising. For the wheatpaste, Hazo mocked the oat milk company’s branding, replacing their questionable logo with a clown’s head sporting a crossed out “woke” tattoo above its left eye. Under this clown head Hazo has in text, “Major Failures, Clown M*lk”.

While the kind of “guerilla marketing” that Minor Figures is implementing here in Philly and around the US is not uncommon, this by far is the worst example I’ve ever seen of a brand seeming to not care at all about local art. Minor Figures offered a sort of apology on their Instagram yesterday in which they tried to place the blame on the local company they hired to install their marketing concept. But soon after posting that, more artists from other cities including Los Angeles, Portland, and New York (so far) started commenting that they also destroyed local art where they live. So that excuse seems to not be the full story. From my point of view, this isn’t the fault of anyone they hired in any of the cities affected, this is clearly the result of their terrible marketing strategy at the top.

To get the full story of what Minor Figures did here in Philly, please check out the great reporting this week in both WHYY’s Billy Penn and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

See past artwork from Kid Hazo around Philly here, and read our 2019 interview with the artist here!