London's Underground Ads Have Been Replaced With Cat Pictures

For the next two weeks, the daily commute for Londoners passing through the Underground’s Clapham Common tube station will be a bit more tolerable. As of September 12, 68 of the station’s advertisements have been replaced with pictures of cats.

The Citizens Advertising Takeover Service, or CATS, first brought their campaign to Kickstarter in April of this year. The idea was ingeniously simple: Make one subway station a more pleasant place to be by switching out the aggressive ads with delightful feline photography. "Wouldn’t it be great not to worry about the holiday we can't afford, the car we don’t need, or the body we don’t have?" read the project page. "Imagine a world where public spaces made you feel pawsitive."

In order to make the dream a reality, the project needed to raise enough funds to buy out an entire platform. After 683 donors pledged over £23,000 (about $30,360) to the cause, the two-week takeover of Clapham Common has successfully been initiated.

The featured cat models come from two UK-based rescue charities: Battersea Dogs & Cats Home and Cats Protection. In addition to possibly getting some pets adopted, the campaign also aims to brighten the days of the humans who pass by.

"Instead of asking you to buy something, we’re asking you to think about what’s really valuable in your life," James Turner, the founder of the organization behind the initiative, said in a release. "It might not be cats, but it’s probably something you can’t find in the shops."

CATS is the first project from Glimpse, a collective which "aims to use creativity for good." Suggestions for the theme of their next advertisement takeover are already being accepted. So far, "dogs" is in the lead.

All image courtesy of Glimpse.

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