Attention saggy pants lovers: A state senator in NY has commissioned a billboard that calls on you to “Stop the Sag.” [More]
billboards
Man Arrested For Hanging Eight-Story Ad, Held On $1-Million Bail
By 3.3.10
Los Angeles has had a problem with illegal billboards for a while, but apparently it’s taking a ban on one type of display advertising seriously. “Supergraphics” are giant outdoor ads that stretch across the sides of buildings and are so big they can be seen from the International Space Station. Last month, the city filed a lawsuit involving several supergraphics already on display. A few days later a businessman hung an eight-story tall one on a building on Hollywood Boulevard, in the line of sight of cameras shooting red carpet coverage for the Oscars. He was arrested and held on a $1,000,000 bail. [More]
Colorado Springs Billboard Company Says "No Puppet Boobs Allowed"
By 2.25.10
Lucy the Slut is one of the puppets in the musical “Avenue Q,” and like the other puppet characters she’s frequently displayed in their advertising. But not in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where a billboard company refused to put up ads showing Lucy’s cleavage. An exec for the billboard company told the local paper, “If I have to explain it to my 4-year-old or my grandmother, we don’t put it up.” Hey four-year-old, it’s a puppet. Hey grandma, those are boobs. Problem solved. [More]
Why A Live Twitter Feed On Your Billboard Might Not Work Out
By 12.1.09
The folks at WPMI-TV in Alabama had an idea. They decided to rent an electronic billboard and stream the station’s live Twitter feed to it. What could possibly go wrong? [More]
Campbell's Brags About Its Noodle Length
By 11.6.09
Campbell’s wants you to know it packs 32 feet of noodles inside every can, and it’s paid for a Times Square billboard to teach that fact to you, AdAge reports.
50 Cool Billboards
By 9.29.09
Most billboards are either ugly jumbles of giant text, or unfortunately memorable things like this. Here’s a list of 50 mostly cool ones (we think the Texas one is ‘shopped, and the anti-American one can suck it). Hey, if you’re gonna advertise on a billboard, you may as well make it entertaining.
When Billboards Collide
By 8.3.09
It’s funny when something accidental happens in advertising, like when billboards that shouldn’t be next to each other are put up. We always suspected the placement of religious billboards are intentional, but we’re really not sure about Cat Jesus. Yes, Cat Jesus.
Art Vigilantes Paint Over 120 Illegal Billboards In NYC
By 5.1.09
Last Saturday, ads-in-public-spaces activist Jordan Seiler spearheaded NYSAT, or New York Street Advertising Takeover, where teams of artists, videographers and activists replaced 120 unregistered billboard advertisements throughout the city with original art installations.
LA Has 4,000 Illegal Billboards, But City Looks On Helplessly
By 4.30.08
In 2002, LA banned any new billboards from going up in the city. Since then, an estimated four thousand have been put up by advertising companies who have ignored the law, which obviously the city’s billboard inspectors—”a tiny, and some say incredibly inept, group”—have never bothered to enforce.
King of Jews, King of Brews
By 7.13.06
He walked on water, He cured the festering and the blind, He turned water into wine. But after a hard day on the cross, even the King of Kings needed a frosty cold one. But two thousand years later, theologians still wrestle with a truly massive question: what would Jesus drink?
11 Things to Be Learned From Country Billboards
By 6.5.06
His eyeballs on sabbatical from ocular saturation in the frenzied consumerism of modern day civilization, John over at American Copywriter decided to go on a long, relaxing drive through the barren heartland of America. To daydream while golden fields of wheat oscillated in the summer breeze! Where the only advertisements were the brand marks on the flanks of lowing cows!
The Broader Side of Billboards
By 6.1.06
John January over at American Copywriter posted an amusing series of musings he had while driving across the Midwest and observing the billboards dotting the road. A choice selection:
McDonald’s Spicy Chicken Gets Hosed
By 3.21.06
McDonald’s pulled a “guerilla” stunt to promote its new spicy chicken sandwich. As shown, a boring billboard was sprayed down with by a fireman with a hose from a fire truck.
Graffiti Artists Buff The Man’s Billboards
By 2.28.06
Buffing is when graffiti artist’s work gets scrubbed over by The Man. Stieg point us to what happens when a street artist buffs The Man back, in this case, a billboard in the Red Hook borough of Brooklyn. The only tools required were a roller, paint and an a roller extension.
