Bristol billboard ad
On my walk into work this morning I started imagining what the city would look like if adverts weren’t permitted in public spaces.
Battery-farmed chickens didn’t yell at me from phone boxes, billboards forgot to tell me not to miss the latest CGI ‘blockbuster’ and phone companies neglected to tell me they liked sport. Buses and taxis passed, informing me about local public transport options instead of what perfume to buy… It was a world I’d like to live in.
Advertising has become such a part of everyday life that often we don’t consciously notice it. We are constantly being told what to buy, how to look and how incomplete as humans we currently are. I gave up TV years ago to avoid this relentless harassment but I cannot give up the physical realm – and advertising companies have stolen this from us. Is it finally time to take it back?
Banning all public space advertising would raise the usual arguments – it would lead to a fall in the economy and would put people out of work. Would it though? This really got me thinking. Surely banning advertising – a luxury of the large multinationals for the most part – would bolster the local economy and lead to greater employment; how so?
As ‘word of mouth’ superseded billboards and posters, quality of product and customer service would be prioritised when deciding where to shop and eat. As smaller shops and restaurants gained more of the market share, employment would rise; as smaller businesses generally employ more people per pound spent than corporations do. The money we spent would remain in our communities and lead to a natural regeneration of our neighbourhoods.
Far from a utopian dream, this world is easily achievable. San Paulo has been ad-free for five years now. Mayor Gilberto Kassab (a pro-business conservative) passed a “Clean City Law” in 2006 that clamped down on advertising – or ‘visual pollution’ as he rightly calls it. Amid fears of loss of revenue ($133m) and jobs (20,000) they tore down more than 15,000 billboards and revealed the beautiful city beneath. Now, five years on, more then 70% of the cities 11million-strong population rate the move “beneficial” and the city still remains mostly ad-free.
In the US, four of the most beautiful states are un-surprisingly billboard-free. Hawaii made the decision as early as 1927; Alaska,Vermont andMaine have since followed suit.
There are many groups in the city that want billboards to be removed from Bristol. Groups in St Werburghs, Easton and Stokes Croft in particular want these blights removed and have made some headway already.
Next time you walk through Bristol, play a little game. Count how many adverts you see – not shop signs or A-frames – but ads on buses, taxis, phone-boxes, buildings, bus-shelters and stand alone billboards. Imagine how much prettier the city would be without them. Imagine how much calmer you would feel and picture the thriving local economy.
With a choice between this and the small amount of lost revenue, I know which city I’d like to live in.
Gus Hoyt is Green Party councillor for Ashley ward
They reckon we're exposed to around 3,000 ads a day on average – most of them inviting us to want something we wouldn't otherwise consider, and pulling all sorts of psychological tricks to make it happen.
That takes it way beyond simply informing or meeting a need. It's the creation of want in order to satisfy it. That's for those who can afford to – for the rest it remains as want.
The article assumes no social benefit in billboard advertising, consider the recent poster campaigns by Childline, Smokefree South West, Cancer Research, and even the NHS. All who needed to get a message of social benefit broadcasted.
As these are official sites, the advertisers who appear on them are regulated, no alcohol ads near schools for example. This contrasts with unregulated flypostering which surely is a far greater blight, i recently walked past a poster for a club night call 'S**t the Bed' Not really appropriate and other than removal, not a lot can be done about it.
Outside advertising is akin to prostitution: it's a form of solliciting – for every client that actually purchases/falls for what is being publicly displayed thousands are being targeted.
If you buy a magazine or paper you can skip the page, with TV you can change channels but outside advertising is impossible to avoid. It's a sort of soft fascism that also engenders an unacceptable visual pollution.
I suggest that the people of Bristol play another little game – resisting by covering them over with cheap plastic tarps daubed with anti advertising slogans.