The AI Billboards Are Killing SF

Keep in mind that marketing is not just trying to teach you about someone you're unaware of, but is also in part about assuring you (and your boss) that you're about to make the right choice when their sales team is already talking to you, and even in part about ensuring that you (and your boss) continue to feel confident that you did make the right choice (or alternatively make you have doubts about having picked the competitor) after you made the buy.

Making their sales peoples job easier, in particular, can be a lot cheaper than getting the marketing on its own to sell someone on you. They want you to go "oh, yes, FooBar Inc, I recognise that name" instead of your reaction being "who?!?".

A lot of marketing without calls to action fall in the latter two categories. In that case they don't need to tell you who they are. They just need you to notice that they're there enough that they seem like a player that is a good choice. You don't even necessarily want to come across as caring too much about explaining who you are - you just want to portray the silent confidence of someone buyers should already know.

(I have no idea whether the specific billboards you're talking about succeed at this)

I remember seeing an advertising exec talk about spending more money in the area the execs lived so they felt the impact of the advertising, regardless of how effective the spend actually was. This is likely more of the same - making the investors and C-Suite get warm fuzzies.

"Killing SF" is overly dramatic, and others have noted that the phenomenon observed here is not unique to AI, or SF.

But there is something a little...alienating about advertising that's not meant for you.

It's a dumb example, but in Pittsburgh the football stadium was renamed from Heinz Field to Acrisure Stadium.

Of course, "Three Rivers Stadium", the name of the previous building, was best. It's not a name that tries to sell you something. But if you must sell something, "Heinz" is extremely good: it sells products for everyone, and it has historical roots in the area. Of the people, for the people.

But Acrisure? I've looked it up a few times and I still can't remember exactly what it is. Business services or insurance or something like that. And I'm sure that both Acrisure and the Steelers don't really care that I don't know what it is, because it's not really for the vast majority of the 65,000 people who show up on a Sunday to cheer for the team.

That's...weird.

Hard for me to get too upset about billboards in an urban environment, let alone if they're promoting sugar water or some dumb AI service. Let them waste their money.

There's been a moratorium on new billboards in SF for a long time already. No new ones are getting built. Given the reliable revenue they provide, will be a long time before they naturally go extinct.