Outdoor Advertising 2 Citichat 3 October 2008

CITICHAT 39/2008 - 3 October 2008


Outdoor Advertising -2

I mentioned the northern ‘gateway’ to Newtown last week (as you drive over the Nelson Mandela Bridge). On your right is an empty building that has been wrapped for the past five years, possibly much more. It’s current advertisement is for Castle Beer. Look left and you have a wrap advertising KWV Brandy and next to it a seven storey high Chivas Regal advert. The KWV ad reads “perfect whichever way you look at it” – well, whatever the quality of the brandy might be, “perfect” the ad certainly is not, whichever way you look at it! It is filthy and shows how badly polluted the city must be. Flo Bird says “We approach the Mandela Bridge through a setting of grubby wraps which not only reveal the grubby commercial soul of the city but the disgracefully foul and polluted air. Perhaps the City should include a wash day clause when it grants these rights. They are certainly no advertisement for Johannesburg.”

Driving up Rissik Street and 222 Smit Street directly ahead of one, (built in 1967 as The Schlesinger Centre) is really disfigured by a giant Amstel ad over part of its façade. Apart from other considerations, the ad totally unbalances the symmetry of the building. Then there is the technically advanced Johnny Walker ad on Life Building in Commissioner Street. Technically advanced because, whilst the ad looks like a wrap-around it in fact isn’t – the ad material only spans the section between windows which is quite amazing given the narrow width of that space. The building is in fact covered with about two dozen strips per elevation each strip about twenty storeys high and only covering the non-window portion of the structure. The eye doesn’t read it that way of course and what we have is a twenty storey high Johnny Walker on each elevation! I actually think it is technically brilliant but wonder who in Council decided that it complies with 4 (1) The Council is to have due regard to “(a) the compatibility of the proposed advertising sign with the environment and with the amenity of the immediate neighbourhood …..” given that the immediate neighbourhood is the historic Indian quarter, the religions of which prohibit alcohol!

Then there is the C N A building in Commissioner Street, one of the city’s twenty Art Deco buildings. Neglected by its previous owners, Old Mutual, for many years, it was sold two or three years back to Urban Ocean who immediately threw up a hoarding around the building proclaiming that it would be commencing reconstruction within months. Now years, rather than months, later, huge advertising signs have been fixed to its elevations. This is clearly against the Heritage Act as well as our new by-laws which specifically state that in considering an application, the Council will have due regard to ”whether the advertising sign will obscure an architectural feature…of architectural, historical or heritage significance” There is a growing feeling amongst many who truly have the city at heart, that these particular developers have some sort of ‘deal’ with the Council – illegal signboards, lanes of roads closed off to their advantage for years, a substantial part of Harry Hofmeyr parking garage reserved for their exclusive use whilst the public battle to find parking; buildings like the C N A and Shakespeare House allowed to self-implode – something is clearly not right!

But it isn’t only the ads that are a problem, it’s also when the ad has gone and we’re left with an ugly steel skeleton on which it was erected. A good example is on top of the previous Sanlam Centre now called Marble Hall. The structure for the erection of a wrap around sign on top of the building has been there for years and years. A by-law states (4) that if no sign has been advertised on the structure “at any time” the Council may require a sign to be displayed, that this could be a ‘community message of the Council’s specification” or that advertising approval lapses. If it lapses then the Council can order the removal of the structure. Again, no compliance, no enforcement!

Was in Cape Town on Wednesday and interested to see from the Cape Times that “The City of Cape Town is waging ‘long-running battles’ with landlords and advertisers who ignore signage restrictions on historic buildings in Long Street and other parts of the city”. The report also states that “The city last year got a court interdict against signage company Tractor Outdoor preventing it from erecting a sign on the wall of the Portswood Lodge in Sea Point.”



Cape Town is obviously way ahead of us, it not only has by-laws to manage the outdoor advertising industry but appears to be actively trying to enforce them. My biggest concern here is that we have by-laws (not just for outdoor advertising) that are taken off the shelf from time to time, dusted off, updated to cover the latest technologies, negotiated through public participation that I suspect is solely with the industry representatives involved and not the people who really care about the city, then put back on the shelf and ignored by those who are responsible for enforcement. Can someone assure us that when considering applications for advertising someone “has due regard” to 4 c “the size and location of a proposed advertising sign and its alignment in relation to any existing advertising sign on the same building or on the same property if such property is greater than 1000m2 in extent, and such sign’s compatibility with the visual character of the area surrounding it.” Seriously, who monitors the rash of signs we have throughout the city – is the checking for illegal signs part of the function of the new urban management officers and multi task enforcement groups or of the JMPD? Whichever, nothing is being done!



I have this constant fear that we are moving towards a city with perfect regulations and by-laws none of which mean more than a row of beans because no-one enforces them.



And, I’m not against signage nor appropriate advertising. One Citichat reader puts forward the following: “Neon Signage adds life to the city’s skyline. Every commercial world class city that I have been to has a abundance of neon signage. It shows a sense of prosperity. It also gives the city two distinct vibes, one at day and the other at night. We need MORE big neon signs in the inner city, it should be encouraged. We should, like Times Square, increase the minimum size of neon signs. Only BIG signs should be allowed on rooftops and only one sign per building This will stop the clutter of small signs that look like sign farming especially around the bridge.



I think the Carlton Centre should get a 10 storey neon signboard or light up the building in Transnet colours. Shanghai buildings light up and have changing colours as well as huge neon signs. I think it looks classy - Bling is the relevant word and is very much African. Look at the chrome on cars these days in SOWETO and look at the music videos. We don't want Joburg to look like some boring European / Nordic cities. From a fashion perspective good big name branding is where the world is going. Why can't the city get more big brands like the Coke, it shows the world that these brands are part of the city. It is like an endorsement and they add value to the name Joburg.”



Well, Neal Peirce (Washington Post Writers Group) shows where the USA is moving and where we may well follow given the clout of the advertising industry – so read the following and weep!



All signs point to billboard blight



“There's lots of talk about the "greening" of America in this time of climate change and soaring energy costs. But don't count the billboard industry in.

Indeed, its latest and biggest moneymakers are the big, brash, brilliant signs — LED (light-emitting diode) digital billboards — being sited rapidly on high-volume highways coast to coast.

The flashy mega-signs are called energy efficient, but they're powerful enough to be seen a half mile away and consume about 4,800 watts of electric power per square yard per hour. Each costs about $450,000. Over 500 are up already; one industry analyst predicts there'll be 75,000 by 2010.

Driving on congested, stop-and-go urban freeways, it's increasingly tough to ignore these monsters, each flashing a new commercial every six or eight seconds. "We have the ultimate ability to withstand the whole challenge of consumer avoidance," Paul Meyer, chief executive of Clear Channel Outdoor, one of the media titans now dominating the billboard industry, told The Washington Post. "We're there 24-7. There's no mute button, no on-off switch, no changing the station."

What's more, because each digital board can have multiple sponsors with constantly updated messages, advertisers are proving easy to recruit. The industry is reportedly enjoying close-to-astronomic profit margins.

Critics charge that the new signs, like the 500,000-plus old-style billboards dotting U.S. highways coast to coast, not only blight the landscape but represent private exploitation of roadways that the public paid for.

And increasingly, charges Kevin Fry, president of Scenic America, tasteless outdoor advertising is endangering Americans' public realm. Drive into San Francisco and a forest of signs looms ahead, obscuring one of our most beautiful and renowned skylines. New York's great neighborhoods are being — in Fry's words — "draped like a giant burrito in enormous vinyl signs."

There's no doubt the billboard industry, which sues to invalidate local communities' sign ordinances and targets decision-makers from local towns to state legislatures to Congress, represents one of the nation's most potent lobbies. It's effectively emasculated the 42-year-old Highway Beautification Act, passed with Lady Bird Johnson's inspiration.

And its hunger shows no bounds. Think trees, for example. This January, the Spartanburg, S.C., Men's Garden Club planted dozens of dogwoods, maples and other trees along a five-mile stretch of interstate roadway, some of it blighted by decaying and partly collapsed billboards. But the South Carolina Department of Transportation ordered removal of 45 trees because they were inside the 300-foot highway "view window" the billboard lobby had urged the state to mandate.

Indeed, at least 28 states have laws that can force cutting trees owned by the public on public land if they obscure drivers' clear view of billboards. Florida even insists on a 500-to-1,000-foot "view zone." How "ungreen," one wonders, can government policy get?

Are all signs then to be condemned? No, says Fry, reasonably sized informational signs are fine. Even big electronic displays are OK where they spell the very character of a place, such as Times Square or the Las Vegas strip. The problem is the sign and billboard lobby trying to force inappropriate signs down Americans' throats, from city to country, wherever it sees a buck to be made.

Los Angeles, for example, has been trying to get a handle on the 10,000-plus billboards, many illegally placed or sized, lining its roadways. The City Council ordered an inspection and enforcement program, plus a moratorium on new boards. Clear Channel Outdoor Inc. and CBS Outdoor Inc. sued to invalidate the ordinance. According to the Los Angeles Times, the city was winning successive court rounds when City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo suddenly stepped in to settle with the billboard giants. He agreed to legalize scores of illegally operating billboards if the industry would agree to inspection and modest fees.

Billboard opponents were enraged, noting Delgadillo had received $424,000 worth of billboard space to support his election, and that the firms had continued to contribute thousands more to him and some of the City Council members who eventually approved the settlement.

Fighting the billboard lobby looks like a classic David and Goliath struggle — huge resources against largely unpaid volunteers. But those volunteers say that if we're to hope for a clean, green, uncluttered America, this is one battle we can't avoid.”

Have a good weekend, neil