I live on an implicitly ad free island in the Pacific. You might figure out where but I'm being vague for privacy. In any case, I don't believe there is any law against e.g. billboards here, but there definitely aren't any. I really appreciate it. When I've driven in e.g. California I feel so depressed seeing all the billboards.
Adfree Cities
171–180 of 278 posts
Re: Adfree Cities
#172I'll be the contrarian here and say that I actually like certain advertisements and billboards. If you are stuck in traffic or on a bus in an ugly urban hellscape, is a billboard really that bad? I'm sorry, they are not going to plant trees in Times Square to replace the billboards. Even in their own press photos, they are showing several billboards that are covering up even uglier buildings! Maybe you are an enlight…
Billboards distract drivers and are a safety hazard. They’re also lit up like crazy and are an extra hazard at night not to mention the light pollution. Advertising for local events should be allowed under some carve out but it would be nice if the vast majority of ads died as they’re not that. Here in SF for example when entering or leaving the city the ads are full of coke, Disney, Apple or Google phones, or variou…
I agree that some billboards are real road hazards. But if you are stuck at a light or in a massive traffic I'd rather you look at them than your phone.
SF is actually the example I had in mind because they do a good job of keeping them away from the scenic areas - but the whole downtown core is already such a dump that I really don't mind the advertisements.
I think you are also discounting how weird SF ads are - as a visitor they are actually unique and interesting to me. One of the fun things about visiting different cities is seeing how unique the cultures are, and ads actually give you a good window into this.
Re: Adfree Cities
#173I've had friends observe that I'm sometimes extremely oblivious to public signage that gives important information that I should really be paying attention to, or looking around lost to figure out my way when a directing sign is right in my face. Perhaps some of that is that my head is too much in the clouds, but I suspect a huge part of it is that the overabundance of ads everywhere trying to manufacture desire has…
I've got an overactive filter as well, and I think it's because of a similar conditioning around "99% of incoming signal is worthless to me".
I'm often wondering what the speed limit is here because I missed the sign.
I still notice pretty sunsets though.
Re: Adfree Cities
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
I could be wrong. Maybe the majority are those sorts of local businesses. What I never seem to see is local businesses I actually want to visit. The cool vintage stores, the goth stores, the retro game shops, the hole-in-the-wall Filipino restaurants, the local craft supply stores, the cat cafes, the weird toy stores, the artisan candy stores, the dubious bone and bone decor shops, the gay book stores, the Japanese i…
> vintage ... retro ... hole in the wall .. weird ... artisan .. dubios The adjectives you used are the opposite of mass market. Thus mass-market advertising doesn't work, so those businesses don't spend money in those channels. The ads that work on billboards are very high dollar services businesses, or multi-nationals who need to spend through budgets everywhere for neilsen scores. For example: insurance, lawyers a…
> The adjectives you used are the opposite of mass market. Thus mass-market advertising doesn't work, so those businesses don't spend money in those channels.
I know why they don't advertise on billboards. My point is that billboards are not the life support of local business suggested by the comment I was responding to, because the local businesses that give a city character and community generally don't use billboards.
> For example: insurance, lawyers and RE agents - they need to build "trust" through name recognition so when you do decide to make that purchase/call, you call them first.
...Right. So in other words, the billboard is mostly deception, and it's probably not bringing value to the public.
Re: Adfree Cities
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
That makes sense. I wouldn't want ads or anything else ugly in a historic area, but also this is normally something you combat locally. It seems like this site targets an oddly broad audience.
A lot of people in Britain live in, work in or regularly visit a historic area. However, I think they're targeting everywhere in the UK, historic or not.
I can totally see not wanting ads in historic areas, but on their website you can see them protesting billboards in industrial sections and freeway underpasses and the like.
Re: Adfree Cities
#176The award of the contract for the outdoor advertising space (bus shelters, roadside space) in my city was tied to providing and maintaining a cheap metro-area wide bike sharing scheme. For 30ish euros a year I get unlimited 45 minute trips on bikes that are widely available, well maintained, and easy to use. In 2022 there were more than 10 million trips taken on these hire bikes and nearly 84,000 annual subscribers.…
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Re: Adfree Cities
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not a good trade, there shouldn't be a monopoly on public ads, local businesses should be able to reach consumers without having to go through a monopolist that captures all of the value.
The alternative is to not have a cheap popular bikeshare system. Also with monopolist it is really easy to keep some standards, quality of the ads.
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Re: Adfree Cities
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you ever visit washington DC it is absolutely wild the kind of things that are advertised via billboard. Raytheon making sure everyone knows where to get their missiles etc.
I still think it's super wild, but after thinking about it it's a lot like IT in big companies. Someone cold emails your boss and all of the sudden you're demoing some random doodad. In DC, your boss sees a fighter jet engine upgrade ad when walking into the Pentagon from the metro, and... (I literally saw that exact ad at the pentagon metro station. who buys a 30 million dollar engine upgrade off of a metro ad?)
When my country was tendering for new fighter jets a few years ago there were a lot of ads on various social media. Since random civilians like yours truly seldom impulse buy $100M latest generation fighter jets, I presume the goal was to influence public opinion and politicians to lean on the actual procurement organization that was responsible for arriving at a recommendation for the next generation jet. Still, it all seemed pretty far fetched, or maybe the vendors just had a poor understanding of how such procurement programs are run in my country.
Re: Adfree Cities
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
Billboards distract drivers and are a safety hazard. They’re also lit up like crazy and are an extra hazard at night not to mention the light pollution. Advertising for local events should be allowed under some carve out but it would be nice if the vast majority of ads died as they’re not that. Here in SF for example when entering or leaving the city the ads are full of coke, Disney, Apple or Google phones, or variou…
I agree that some billboards are real road hazards. But if you are stuck at a light or in a massive traffic I'd rather you look at them than your phone. SF is actually the example I had in mind because they do a good job of keeping them away from the scenic areas - but the whole downtown core is already such a dump that I really don't mind the advertisements. I think you are also discounting how weird SF ads are - as…
> But if you are stuck at a light or in a massive traffic I'd rather you look at them than your phone.
Billboards don't only appear when traffic is stopped though. It's not worth the increased danger.
Also, I really don't think the presence of billboards is a common deciding factor in whether or not someone is looking at their phone. Maybe if they're driving in an otherwise featureless void, but I think people are either going to look at their phone or not, regardless of what's outside their car.
Re: Adfree Cities
#180I understand why people hate advertising but if I’m honest, I don’t agree with having an “adfree city”. I personally like the aesthetic of visual overload that you find in ad-laden cities (let’s say in Tokyo). It makes the space feel living, breathing, and alive, which a city should be. And then the visually quiet spaces, like temples and parks, feel much more sweet. Also at a conceptual level I disagree with the jus…
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