Billboards, Visual Delight or Visual Blight

By Nicholas Carbone

SOC531 Fall 2011 Navid Ghani 10/21/11

Have you ever gone to a friends house and saw that their house is a complete mess? Have you ever been overwhelmed when your room is a filthy mess? At first you are stressed out, but as time goes on you get used to it and more garbage will pile on top of other kinds of garbage until you cant even see the floor. This can be very nerve-racking until you actually clean and organize everything to release the burden off your shoulders. If youve ever seen something that you thought was unattractive or visually disturbing, you have been visually polluted. There are lots of different types of visual pollution: billboards, graffiti, litter, overhead power lines, utility poles, contrails, skywriting, signs, advertisements, abandoned/boarded up building structures and even unattractive people. The scope of my paper will be primarily concentrated on billboards. I will be discussing how billboard and sign advertisements can be functional to our society and also how they can create conflict. There are legislations such as the Highway Beautification Act and The Clean City Law were enacted in addition to organizations like Scenic America and the Dunn Foundation that do all they can to prevent the spread of visual clutter on the streets. A billboard is a large size structure which is used as the instrument in the outdoor advertising activity and it is mostly found in high traffic areas. Bulletins, hoardings, posters, etc. are some of the categories of the billboard advertising. It is one of the most useful mediums of advertising because of its capability to gain high visibility, not only due to its size but also due to its eye catching and creative designs. Marketing professionals, who understand the idea and create a concept of an advertisement, delivers the idea to designers who then craft the design based on that concept. This entire phenomenon is fully based on the creative skills of the marketer and the designer. Furthermore, any advertisement seems to be more attractive when

there is an exclusive creativity in the advertisement and also, the way of its presentation. You must have seen conspicuous billboards alongside the road, which are amazingly designed and presented in order to catch the attention and compel the visitors to have a look on the information displayed on it. Billboard advertising is one of the reasonable and effective ways to promote products, services and many other things. Of course, any large structure will have somewhat of an impact on the environment, since it is made of a lot of materials that require energy to acquire, and takes energy to be built. Also, billboards are lit up at night, so there is that to consider. By themselves, they have less of an impact on the environment than houses, buildings, or cars, but one thing that is unique to billboards is that they get a message across to people. Depending on what message they are giving, they could have a positive or negative effect on the environment. For example, a billboard promoting green awareness may have a positive effect, whereas a billboard selling cars could be argued as perpetuating our dependence on oil. To achieve a successful advertising campaign, there are four principles to be achieved. These are: attention, interest, desire and action. Billboards are communication tools which aim to inform a specific message in a given environment, where the visual pollution is really great. This, rather than an obstacle is a challenge to be overcome creatively. In this sense, we must focus on achieving a product of great visual and emotional appeal, allowing it to capture the attention of passerbys. Businesses have benefitted from billboards for decades. This form of signage has allowed them to advertise services, products or commodities on properties that are off-site of their business, in a very large and public way. Localities can profit monetarily from billboards. In New York State, billboards are considered real property and, as such, can be taxed. Any municipality that has billboards should examine its tax roll to determine if the local billboards are generating tax revenues and to reappraise the value of billboards on the tax roll to be certain that they are not

being significantly undervalued. Billboards can also be a form of entertainment and distraction on long family trips. Billboards can sometimes reel in lonely or poor people, as they are vulnerable to the effects of advertising. They can also be bad because of the way that they are constructed and basically to suck people in, especially when they can least afford to. Billboards can also bring people's self esteem down in order to sell a product, and this can mean, in extreme cases, some mental issues. For example, if a billboard is advertising a weight loss program in which skinny models are used (models of impractical sizes), the average woman will feel under pressure by these small figures and feel they instantly need to endure a weight loss program. People often judge others according to the brand products they use. For example, a man that has a Porsche will be much more prominent than that of a man with a Toyota Camry. As a result, there will be inequality among the people in the society. New Monash University research proves visual clutter around our roads, including prominent advertising, signs or billboards, can be a distraction hazard for drivers, especially older ones. They found that distractions delay drivers' ability to detect a change around them, such as a vehicle changing lanes - by an average of half a second. Older drivers took the longest to react. As drivers we can only look at and pay attention to one thing at a time. When we are looking at a sign or a billboard, we are not looking at the road, leading to a higher accident risk. Older drivers in particular have difficulty detecting changes on the road and in following road sign instructions in busy environments. This finding is crucial as, due to an ageing population, there are more people aged over 65 and more are staying on the road despite age. But now, on top of that bad list, QR billboards are being made. QR billboards are billboards that include a two-dimensional box-like bar code that looks like digital art. People with camera phones and proper apps can scan the codes and access a daily deal

coupon or a companys website. Download a coupon and seal the deal. The outdoor advertising is the latest for companies trying desperately to get consumers to respond immediately to pitches. QR (quick response) billboards bring the shopping mall right into the car that is traveling at about 65 mph on the interstate. In July, Calvin Klein replaced some of its billboards featuring scantily clad model with a bright red QR code. QR billboards may be the most likely to kill someone. QR billboards will prove to be inaccessible to consumers. An effective billboard campaign works when drivers have 2 to 8 seconds of clear visibility to the sign, most advertisers agree. Indiana has a law banning texting and driving. Distracted drivers cause accidents. With QR billboards, drivers might be tempted certainly passengers will to divert attention for 10 seconds and download a coupon, likely for car repair from driving into a ditch. From a study of outdoor advertising in EDSA, Philippines it states, in Metro Manila alone there are a staggering 8,000 billboards in the year 2004 according to the Outdoor Advertising Association of the Philippines (OAAP). The number is still rising fast up to this moment. If it implies a growing economy, then fine - it bodes well for the country. However, the situation is not that rosy after all. Because of strong typhoons that hit the Philippines frequently and that have toppled down 24 billboards just recently, a noisy wave of actions against billboards has sparked anew. Many people strongly complain that billboards pose both mental and physical hazards which put the public in a real and critical danger. They claim that the risks to motorists and pedestrians are an everyday concern and therefore the indiscriminate installation of billboards must be curbed! Visual pollution caused by the uncontrolled proliferation of these billboards is another issue at stake. Part of the urban landscape is the streetscape. The buildings shape the urban landscape and the image they give contribute to the public character of the street. These and other elements all come together to form part of the streetscape. The billboards are then to be considered its

essential part because of their inescapable presence at the roadsides. They do influence the visual character of streets in either ways, negatively, -by polluting the visual quality of the streetscape on one hand, or positively, by perhaps enriching its aesthetic variety on the other hand. Other than the horrible distractions that billboards cause, whether theyre fancied with sexual innuendos or just plain text on a white backdrop, they will always clutter our cities by taking away from the true beauty of natures scenery. Billboards proliferated in the 1940s and 1950s, spurred by the growth of automobile traffic and construction of interstate highway system, but in 1965 Lady Bird Johnson, wife of President Lyndon Johnson, made highway beautification one of the signature themes of the Great Society and introduced legislation in Congress to preserve scenic beauty by removing and regulating billboards along America's highways. Ugliness is so grim, the first lady proclaimed, and she fought for and won passage of the Highway Beautification Act of 1965. This groundbreaking law prompted a number of states, including Alaska, Hawaii, Maine and Vermont, to ban billboards totally. Sao Paulo, The worlds 4th largest metropolis and Brazils most important city was stripped of advertising (No Posters. No flyers. No ads on buses. No ads on trains. No Adshels, no 48-sheets, no nothing) thanks to the Clean City Law act that was created in 2007. Sao Paulo became the first city outside of the communist world to put into effect a radical, near-complete ban on outdoor advertising. Known on one hand for being the country's slick commercial capital and on the other for its extreme gang violence and crushing poverty, Sao Paulo's "Lei Cidade Limpa" or Clean City Law was an unexpected success, owing largely to the singular determination of the city's conservative mayor, Gilberto Kassab. As the driving force behind the measure, mayor Kassab quelled the rebellion from the advertising industry with the help of key allies amongst the city's elite. On many occasions, Kassab made the point that he has nothing against advertising in and of itself, but

rather with its excess. He explained, "The Clean City Law came from a necessity to combat pollution ... pollution of water, sound, air, and the visual. We decided that we should start combating pollution with the most conspicuous sector -- visual pollution. Since then, billboards, outdoor video screens and ads on buses have been eliminated at breakneck speed. Even pamphleteering in public spaces has been made illegal, and strict new regulations have drastically reduced the allowable size of storefront signage. Nearly $8 million in fines were issued to cleanse Sao Paulo of the blight on its landscape. Two years later, the government of Buenos Aires removed 40 thousand billboards to help fight off visual pollution. This action removed over 50 percent of billboards. According to Pagina 12 newspaper, the new law's main points are: It establishes three areas in the city: residential, commercial zone and the Republic Suare. In the first area, some signs will be allowed, but only small ones to indicate a shop's activity; in the second area there will be drastic cuts to advertising; and the third will be the only one to allow big signs and electronic billboards, but there will be new regulations. The law also establishes new parameters for signs, such as lightning and allowed colors. It also forbids the total covering of facades, some kinds of billboards, and the installation of signs on apartments and houses. Businessmen from the advertising sector of course reacted, with a campaign claiming that less signs mean fewer voices that speak to the population with messages that can be useful for society. However, they agree to the fact that the segment needs organization since a growing number of billboards means they are less valuable and therefore cheaper to rent. The group got to an agreement with the government when the mayor's office proposed to take down the measure that established it would not give permissions for new billboards in exchange for the companies to take down the illegal signs. Scenic America, the only national nonprofit that helps citizens safeguard the scenic

qualities of Americas roadways, countryside and communities, describes billboards as Sky Trash, Litter on a stick and the junk mail of the American highway. Nothing destroys the distinctive character of our communities and the natural beauty of our countryside more rapidly than uncontrolled signs and billboards, which is why Scenic America works so hard to stop their proliferation and encourage their removal. They helped raise general public awareness about: Benefits of scenic conservation, threats to natural beauty and community character, success stories and best practices, promote government policies that encourage local citizen engagement, protect scenic beauty and limit visual pollution. A few of Scenic Americas accomplishments: removed over 1,000 illegal billboards in Baltimore, helped stop new billboard construction in Los Angeles and hundreds of others nationwide, established state scenic byways programs in GA and OH and led a coalition to preserve and enhance the Journey Through Hollowed Ground in VA, MD and PA. Another organization that contributes to the prevention of visual pollution and billboards is The Dunn Foundation. The Dunn Foundation is concerned with the quality of the visual environment. The Foundations major emphasis is educational programs to increase public awareness of and appreciation for community appearance and community identity. We challenge children and adults to discover links between the natural and man-made world, and the appearance of the communities in which they live. Through this exploration, people are encouraged to become active stewards for the protection and enhancement of their communitys visual assets. Unfortunately, the unique and individual physical character of Americas cities, towns and countryside, which is a product of history, culture, and geography, is being eroded. Numerous economic and social factors are contributing to the decline in community appearance including the proliferation of standardized architecture, automobile-dominated commercial development, and insensitive development of natural and rural areas for housing, offices and

retail space. The Dunn Foundation is committed to reversing this trend through educational initiatives, community-based research, and philanthropy. Our concern is that young people do not see how their communities are affected, nor do they have a healthy sense of place. Our society used to value how our communities looked both built and natural. What happened to the places we liked to call home? Just like all other types of visual pollution, billboards are subjective and in the eyes of the beholder. Billboards are not exactly for us. Im sure there are many other ways our bright marketing experts can think of. This is surely not a great one.