Occupy Wall Street could be occupying your television this weekend.

Supporters chipped in more than $6,000 to a crowdfunding campaign that will put a video of protesters explaining their objectives in the commercial lineup of cable television channels.

"It's sort of an occupied version of advertising," crowdfunding site Loudsauce's co-founder Colin Mutchler says. "It's about occupying ad space with what citizens think is important for the country."

The video was produced free by David Sauvage, who uploaded it to YouTube October 12. The Loudsauce campaign to put it on television started the same day.

Loudsauce works much like Kickstarter, but it crowdfunds media space purchases rather than projects. Since launching late last year, it has helped place ads from organizations such as environmental campaigns 350.org and The Story of Stuff.

"The perception of how expensive television ads are is that it's prohibitive to get on television even once, that it is not within reach of individuals or groups," Mutchler says.

Sauvage's Occupy Wall Street commercial is an example of how this perception isn't always true. With the $6,278 that 168 people have chipped in (minus the 10% cut that Loudsauce charges campaigns), the campaign purchased more than 100 commercial slots between Saturday and Monday.

Bloomberg Business TV (nationally) as well as ESPN, CBS Sports, History International, Outdoor Channel, Gayle King Show, Grey's Anatomy and Friends (on DISH network, Direct TV and Verizon Fios) will all be running the commercial. It is expected to air on Fox News seven times.

Campaign founders hope this weekend won't be the last time you see Occupy Wall Street commercials. They've started another Loudsauce page to buy ad time for three more of Sauvage's videos.

A television advertising campaign might seem contradictory to the Occupy movement, which is proud of its decentralized leadership even while being criticized for sending mixed messages. The 30-second commercial shows occupiers stating what the occupiers want: "to see more serious political conversaitons starting to happen," "corporations out of the government and people back in," "the top wealthiest Americans to be taxed higher and that money to go to education."

But does the commercial, backed by just 168 people, speak for the movement? Mutchler says no — not if you think of it as the first of many crowdfunded campaigns.

"If it really were that this one guy's commercial represented the movement, I don't think it would be in the spirit of the movement," he says. "There will be others like this, from other groups and filmmakers."





