by ButterflyEffect

It’s not just about cleansing cities of “visual pollution” as if it were a sort of surface grime. Billboard advertising is far more intimately entwined with the architecture of cities. While in other media we can, to some extent, choose to consume ads, out of home advertising (OOH) has melded itself inextricably into our environment. As Capitol Outdoor writes on its website: “Outdoor advertising… incorporates your targeted branding message into the everyday landscape of commuters and becomes part of the very fabric of the living and working environment where it is placed.”

The ubiquity of outdoor advertising means that we have come to take it for granted; accepting both its presence and its purpose as natural features of the urban environment. “Outdoor ads have become part of people’s day-to-day urban wallpaper… and connect everyday ways of thinking to commercials imperatives,” says Anne Cronin, an advertising and cities expert at the University of Lancaster. This is gleefully echoed by Clear Channel Outdoor, who boast: “When brands advertise on our street structures, they become part of the public social space, entering people’s thoughts and conversations.”

I'm okay with this movement. I have this dream that mass-marketing and advertising is something has created a false need that doesn't need to exist, and we're slowly becoming aware of that. Eventually my dream ends up in a state where this kind of advertising no longer exists and while marketing still exists, it's a lot more directed and at a local/regional level. Because let's be honest - is there anybody out there who likes advertising?