Bye bye billboards

Last month the major of Sao Paulo decided to take down all the billboards, flashing neon signs, bus ads, even reduce front shops. A city of 20 million people found herself naked. The decision was taken to fight the illegal billboards that are filling the streets and covering the buildings of the metropolis; Sao Paulo was billboard’s anarchic paradise.

The citizens reacted positively, tired of the daily chaos caused by thousand of outdoor ads, marketers didn’t: being on the right side, paying for the space in conformity with law, the big brands became victims, paying for other’s crimes. The chief of the commercial association of Sao Paulo declared: "We live in a consumer society and the essence of capitalism is the availability of information about products”. It was not convincing, and as a result Sao Paulo got undressed, maybe the first metropolis in the western World to do so.

What’s going to happen then? The situation looks very dangerous for marketers, considering how fast an initiative like this can be spread all over and be font of inspiration for other city councils. Billboards, anyway, are also an important way of characterizing a city (New York’s Times Square, Tokyo’s Shibuya) and became part of the urban environment.