Given the disparity between the types of billboard ads I see in real life, and the ones that fill my LinkedIn feed, if creativity is a legitimate justification for billboards, then we can surely just have billboards exist solely as digital mockups, a repurposed relic like the floppy disc save icon.
Of course, that isn’t the reason, and a do wish advertising would have an honest conversation with itself about the relationship between creativity and effectiveness when it comes to these.
Yeah, I think we may have entered that virtual world already – so many billboard images are mock-ups these days, and you wonder why the real-world version is even necessary.
The digital mockup of billboards is a bizarre trend of a sort of stolen valour/stature. Why do we respond differently when we perceive it to be an in-situ execution? Probably because of implication that the space is finite, rare, expensive, when in digital it is not.
Yeah, well put. One of the implied messages of all billboard campaigns is 'We can afford a billboard campaign' – there's a costly signalling effect that says something about the status of the brand. Having a real-life campaign also implies that the relevant authorities think it's OK for you to be saying this stuff, so there's some social proof implied.
So when people publish mock-ups as though they were real, or pay for a single real site and photograph it as though it's a bigger campaign, they're borrowing all the valour/stature that you mention. Same with a lot of the CGI stuff around at the moment.
First Euston's biggest challenge is the ridiculous habit of announcing the train platform less than 10 minutes before departure, even though the app in your pocket knows which platform. This creates a rush of people, often desperate for a seat and is discriminatory against the elderly and disabled. The billboards have entered an already broken place.
Secondly look at any early 20th century image of central London and you will see tons of logos and adverts on every surface. Billboards are not new. Done well I think cross track advertising can be engaging and interesting and great for brands to use.
Your Hackney statistic is cherry picking, Hackney is in the middle for Median wages and both those brands core markets very much live there.
The problem is I think you are really pointing to is that advertising sucks. As someone who works in adjacent industry I find it embarrassing at times the quality that is out there. Whether it is vanilla dross or award chasing shock it's just becoming a social irritant because it adds no value.
You're conflating the issues that I carefully separate out in the post!
Euston's overcrowding has nothing to do with the billboards, which I point out have a nudge-theory purpose to reduce overcrowding. But the symbolism is what people object to – and I think quite reasonably.
And yes, I talk about the long history of billboards and how they've helped define the character of places like Piccadilly Circus and Times Square. I like billboards.
Hackney stats are just neutral facts – I think it's painful that these two people are doing the 'Can you lend us a tenner' gags and painting themselves as self-made entrepreneurs, right opposite one of the poorest sixth form colleges where the students really will have to be self-made. These problems don't arise when you just keep it to LinkedIn, but billboards are real things in the real world.
The problem isn't the quality of the advertising, it's the lack of regard for context. 'Cancer won't be the last thing' is good creatively – put it in an appropriate magazine.
The medium is indeed the message, and the specific context of ‘public space’ is what makes this one different, as you articulate so well here.
I didn’t know that David Ogilvy felt so strongly about it, but it shows a deep sensitivity to media that may have gone missing in a world dominated by new digital/social channels, with very different types and styles of ‘reach’.
As ever, I’d love to know what Marshall McLuhan (would have) made of it all?
An enjoyable article. Just a side-thought, where was the ASA and its counterparts in most counties during covid? All of them seemed to disappear off the map when very many rather egregious "please panic" executions were unleashed on the public, most notably in the UK. As well as continuing to push booster and flu shots together as a package deal, in the face of continued bad data. I guess their "standards" are actually quite malleable depending on what and whose agenda it is. I'd love to see their giant rule book.
Some stuff on Covid / ASA here: https://www.asa.org.uk/advice-online/coronavirus-and-covid-19.html – seems to be mainly about overclaims on sanitisers, masks, supplements etc. In the UK, I think a lot of it falls under the MHRA (Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) rather than the ASA, but I'm not that well up on the specifics.
Thanks for this. Yeah, by the look of the "wall of text" and focus on minutiae like sanitisers, it gives me the impression they are not "independent" to the degree that they need to be. They should be doing their own proprietary investigations into what constitutes "appropriate fear levels" especially when it comes to the extreme OOH executions we saw in many places - which are obviously orders of magnitude more consequential than anything to do with sanitisers or specific private companies trying to make a buck off the back of it. To me the ASA mandate should be entirely independent - not running off instructions from any global bodies. Why? Because ostensibly they are the experts in public persuasion and mass psychological effects at scale - and how to match this with messaging quality - the global health bodies are not experts in this. If a global helath "authority" comes and and says "we declare that it's fine to say x" - there should be extra layers of checks on that from the ASA, or they should err on the side of psychological caution (not creating a hysteria) versus 'physical' caution.
As I say, it seemed the same in South Africa where I am. I was standing in line at my bank one day (who used be my strategy client) when the voice on the speakers that normally plays ads and product promos - told us in a London Tube voice that "All South Africans need to "register" to get a vaccine". Me thinking about media placement, messaging tactics, and who exactly benefits from me "registering" while being played in a bank (what deals do they have going on?) - small things like this just told me that the entire media ecosystem was rather out of control in a variety of ways. And I thought also about how any ASA body really has no control over these kind of BTL messages while they are incredibly large scale and using the credibility of the bank. Anyway, I could go on and on... all very strange! Cheers
The anecdote about Gossage and the Highway Beautification Act is fascinating, and one I was not previously aware of. It really proves the point that it’s leaders and people of power who need to drive reform from within and institute change that may go against their own self interests (or those of their industries). That seems like such a rare mentality and practice in today’s business landscape, sadly.
And yet… as you point out, billboard ads have to be for everyone (in that area). No microtargeting using your data, giving just the messages about the brand/product that they think you specifically want to hear. One message for everyone. Which forces a certain honesty, or at least some sort of accountability. GenAI is raising the prospect of individualised ads where every one is hyper-personalised. No regulator could keep track of that, so accountability and responsibility become optional.
Yeah, no disagreement there – much of the power of billboards comes from the fact that we know everyone else is seeing them too. But cases like Surreal/Days come up when brands are entirely oblivious to the 'everyone' out there and just concerned with getting a shot for their LinkedIn page.
Given the disparity between the types of billboard ads I see in real life, and the ones that fill my LinkedIn feed, if creativity is a legitimate justification for billboards, then we can surely just have billboards exist solely as digital mockups, a repurposed relic like the floppy disc save icon.
Of course, that isn’t the reason, and a do wish advertising would have an honest conversation with itself about the relationship between creativity and effectiveness when it comes to these.
Yeah, I think we may have entered that virtual world already – so many billboard images are mock-ups these days, and you wonder why the real-world version is even necessary.
The digital mockup of billboards is a bizarre trend of a sort of stolen valour/stature. Why do we respond differently when we perceive it to be an in-situ execution? Probably because of implication that the space is finite, rare, expensive, when in digital it is not.
Yeah, well put. One of the implied messages of all billboard campaigns is 'We can afford a billboard campaign' – there's a costly signalling effect that says something about the status of the brand. Having a real-life campaign also implies that the relevant authorities think it's OK for you to be saying this stuff, so there's some social proof implied.
So when people publish mock-ups as though they were real, or pay for a single real site and photograph it as though it's a bigger campaign, they're borrowing all the valour/stature that you mention. Same with a lot of the CGI stuff around at the moment.
I think there's a few issues conflated here.
First Euston's biggest challenge is the ridiculous habit of announcing the train platform less than 10 minutes before departure, even though the app in your pocket knows which platform. This creates a rush of people, often desperate for a seat and is discriminatory against the elderly and disabled. The billboards have entered an already broken place.
Secondly look at any early 20th century image of central London and you will see tons of logos and adverts on every surface. Billboards are not new. Done well I think cross track advertising can be engaging and interesting and great for brands to use.
Your Hackney statistic is cherry picking, Hackney is in the middle for Median wages and both those brands core markets very much live there.
The problem is I think you are really pointing to is that advertising sucks. As someone who works in adjacent industry I find it embarrassing at times the quality that is out there. Whether it is vanilla dross or award chasing shock it's just becoming a social irritant because it adds no value.
You're conflating the issues that I carefully separate out in the post!
Euston's overcrowding has nothing to do with the billboards, which I point out have a nudge-theory purpose to reduce overcrowding. But the symbolism is what people object to – and I think quite reasonably.
And yes, I talk about the long history of billboards and how they've helped define the character of places like Piccadilly Circus and Times Square. I like billboards.
Hackney stats are just neutral facts – I think it's painful that these two people are doing the 'Can you lend us a tenner' gags and painting themselves as self-made entrepreneurs, right opposite one of the poorest sixth form colleges where the students really will have to be self-made. These problems don't arise when you just keep it to LinkedIn, but billboards are real things in the real world.
The problem isn't the quality of the advertising, it's the lack of regard for context. 'Cancer won't be the last thing' is good creatively – put it in an appropriate magazine.
Fair enough. Just re-read the first section and don't get that at all.
The medium is indeed the message, and the specific context of ‘public space’ is what makes this one different, as you articulate so well here.
I didn’t know that David Ogilvy felt so strongly about it, but it shows a deep sensitivity to media that may have gone missing in a world dominated by new digital/social channels, with very different types and styles of ‘reach’.
As ever, I’d love to know what Marshall McLuhan (would have) made of it all?
An enjoyable article. Just a side-thought, where was the ASA and its counterparts in most counties during covid? All of them seemed to disappear off the map when very many rather egregious "please panic" executions were unleashed on the public, most notably in the UK. As well as continuing to push booster and flu shots together as a package deal, in the face of continued bad data. I guess their "standards" are actually quite malleable depending on what and whose agenda it is. I'd love to see their giant rule book.
Some stuff on Covid / ASA here: https://www.asa.org.uk/advice-online/coronavirus-and-covid-19.html – seems to be mainly about overclaims on sanitisers, masks, supplements etc. In the UK, I think a lot of it falls under the MHRA (Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) rather than the ASA, but I'm not that well up on the specifics.
Thanks for this. Yeah, by the look of the "wall of text" and focus on minutiae like sanitisers, it gives me the impression they are not "independent" to the degree that they need to be. They should be doing their own proprietary investigations into what constitutes "appropriate fear levels" especially when it comes to the extreme OOH executions we saw in many places - which are obviously orders of magnitude more consequential than anything to do with sanitisers or specific private companies trying to make a buck off the back of it. To me the ASA mandate should be entirely independent - not running off instructions from any global bodies. Why? Because ostensibly they are the experts in public persuasion and mass psychological effects at scale - and how to match this with messaging quality - the global health bodies are not experts in this. If a global helath "authority" comes and and says "we declare that it's fine to say x" - there should be extra layers of checks on that from the ASA, or they should err on the side of psychological caution (not creating a hysteria) versus 'physical' caution.
As I say, it seemed the same in South Africa where I am. I was standing in line at my bank one day (who used be my strategy client) when the voice on the speakers that normally plays ads and product promos - told us in a London Tube voice that "All South Africans need to "register" to get a vaccine". Me thinking about media placement, messaging tactics, and who exactly benefits from me "registering" while being played in a bank (what deals do they have going on?) - small things like this just told me that the entire media ecosystem was rather out of control in a variety of ways. And I thought also about how any ASA body really has no control over these kind of BTL messages while they are incredibly large scale and using the credibility of the bank. Anyway, I could go on and on... all very strange! Cheers
The anecdote about Gossage and the Highway Beautification Act is fascinating, and one I was not previously aware of. It really proves the point that it’s leaders and people of power who need to drive reform from within and institute change that may go against their own self interests (or those of their industries). That seems like such a rare mentality and practice in today’s business landscape, sadly.
And yet… as you point out, billboard ads have to be for everyone (in that area). No microtargeting using your data, giving just the messages about the brand/product that they think you specifically want to hear. One message for everyone. Which forces a certain honesty, or at least some sort of accountability. GenAI is raising the prospect of individualised ads where every one is hyper-personalised. No regulator could keep track of that, so accountability and responsibility become optional.
Yeah, no disagreement there – much of the power of billboards comes from the fact that we know everyone else is seeing them too. But cases like Surreal/Days come up when brands are entirely oblivious to the 'everyone' out there and just concerned with getting a shot for their LinkedIn page.
Cheers for this!