Sunday, April 22, 2007

advertising is finally dead!

in one city that is.

Clearing The Air
April 20, 2007
In January, South America’s largest city officially banned outdoor advertising. Billboards, neon signs, bus-stop ads, even the Goodyear blimp - all were suddenly illegal.

billboard ban

1 comment:

powkang said...

i finally got around to reading this. quite fascinating. i've been wanting to go to brazil for awhile now, and i'd be really interested to see what a city without any advertising looks like.

my problem with being inundated with advertising is not so much that i'm being subjected nonstop to requests/suggestions/demands that i spend money on product/service/lifestyle i don't need (or can't afford), but that most advertising is unintelligent and/or fug. part of what i love about going to a foreign city is being inundated by foreign advertising, regardless of whether or not it is fug (i can't always tell if foreign ads are stupid, though). i think travellers get a certain amount of unspoken understanding of the culture they're visiting based on the advertising they're surrounded with. i can imagine visiting são paulo after this happens to be a visually... quiet place to be. and not a little bit alienating.