I’ve blatantly nicked this off Gareth … but given the last time I copied one of his posts I was told it was miles better than the usual rubbish I write … I am sure no one will be upset.
Bastards. 🙂
Anyway in Sao Paulo, they recently passed a law that mandated no more visual pollution – or as it is known by its other name – outdoor advertising.
Well after all sorts of hissy fits by ad agencies and corporations, the law has finally come ‘alive’ and every poster, sign, billboard, bus shelter etc has been ripped down leaving a city that looks more like a ghost town than a major, vibrant city.
Funny [and sad] how we have allowed ‘volume of advertising’ to subconsciously dictate the scale and importance of towns, cities and countries isn’t it?
I remember years ago working on Red Bull and one of the events they sponsored [a ski race in Italy] was encountering some major problems.
Basically there had been some major fuck up with the signage and they ended up having nothing they could place all around the event.
After giving the situation some thought, we came up with the idea of leaving all the space we’d ‘bought’ blank … then issuing a press release that explained we felt advertising took too much attention away from the enjoyment of the carnival and so we’d bought all the advertising rights so we could leave them blank and let you enjoy the event without distraction.
It was weird seeing a place with no signage … but it still worked in Red Bull’s favour [probably more than it would have otherwise] because the fact there was no advertising was more noticeable [and talked about] than if we’d placed ads in every available corner.
Of course, despite all the success that strategy had achieved, the following year Red Bull resorted to type and put up tons of [wallpaper] advertising wherever the eye could see – however for a week some time around 2001, we did something that was probably more environmentally friendly than anything Mr Gore is currently achieving.
[That last sentence is a joke so don’t start … ]
Anyway, you can read all about the Sao Paulo decision here … and if you want to see what a ‘clean city’ actually looks like [and lets face it, not many people would ever expect it to be in Sao Paulo], go and check out the many wonderful photos by Tony de Marco by clicking here.