Torontonians often use New York as an example of a North American city that has vibrant public spaces and decent urban planning. Specifically, we hear Yonge-Dundas Square compared to Times Square and how lively advertising can enhance a public space (which I disagree with on many levels).
The issue of advertising encroachment is important to Toronto — our street furniture has increasingly become a vehicle for outdoor advertisers to push products (OMG bins, Monster bins, info pillars). The City is about to accept proposals for a 20-year street furniture contract that will be almost entirely funded through ad revenue.
How do the two above paragraphs relate to each other? New York’s local government is beginning to crack down on “corporate graffiti”, or what we at Spacing call “ad creep.” The article also involves Cemusa, the parent company of monster garbage bin creators EUCAN, who recently won the street furniture contract for NYC.
You can read an article about it here (it’s an advertising/PR industry piece so do not expect objectivity). You’ll find ad industry people claiming this will hurt small businesses who rely on ads to help counter-balance the high rents of NYC. Here’s an excerpt:
“We’ve had enough illegal black market advertising in our City,” Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer declared, making it sound as if outdoor ads were promoting contraband rather than iPods, upcoming TV series, public service campaigns and banking services. “There is no oversight, there is no control and no enforcement,” Stringer complained, condemning the ads as a form of “corporate graffiti” and placing the blame for the regulatory laxity on the Department of Buildings. As evidence, the borough president relied on a survey conducted by the Municipal Art Society that found several buildings with advertising on their facades to be in violation of the law.
The Society’s sweeping support of restrictions on public signage represents a turnaround from the position it took in the mid-1980s when City officials proposed turning Times Square into an elegant boulevard stripped of its marquee lights and gigantic illuminated billboards. At the time the Society took the lead to preserve the advertising. The City relented when Times Square property owners simultaneously turned off the lights, plunging the Great White Way into darkness. Case closed: the signs stayed put. It was a powerful message that New York City’s image was inextricably linked to its billboards. (Nearly one third of all postcards depicting New York City’s skyline or neighborhoods feature a billboard.)
Under the new law, which excludes Times Square and a small area on W. 34th Street, many billboards built after 1979 — including those on the heavily trafficked Long Island Expressway — are to be drastically altered or torn down. The City is now proposing to dismantle about 50-60% of existing billboards while also maintaining current restrictions for temporary ads on sidewalk sheds. Many billboards that do remain will have to be reduced in size or be required to face in another direction. Those changes are inevitably going to affect who buys space on them and how much revenue they produce.
Representatives of the advertising industry have reacted to the city’s crusade with dismay and bewilderment. They point out that no study was ever carried out to assess the law or its economic impact on an industry that puts a billion dollars a year into the local economy. “Banning billboards and scaffolding signage will cause a significant financial loss for many different sectors of the economy — property owners, local businesses, union labor, advertising agencies and advertisers,” says Ari Noe, President and CEO of OTR Media Group, a New York-based outdoor advertising company specializing in wallscapes and bulletins.
5 comments
Matthew… your first Paragraph, I couldn’t agree with you more, homes.
Good post. Today it is virtually impossible to escape “corporate graffiti” in all its manifestations.
It reminds me of a sci-fi book I read many years back called the Space Merchants (by Pohl and Kornbluth). In their conception of the future (basically now), advertising was inescapable unless you paid.
Advertisements were even placed blocking the view from the windows in airplane cabins such that if you wanted to look out the window for a few minutes you had to put in a coin. These days it is not as far-fetched as it sounded then.
Listen up, vandalizing vodka company that I shall not name. You know who you are. 🙂
Hi Matt, thanks for this post. Ad creep, as you often argue, is an urban blight. Most agree. I fall into that group who says that there are places like Times Square or Dundas Square in cities where ads can and do intensify the urban experience in a mostly positive way (judging by the number of people who flock to them). Defining the right urban districts for such an approach is important. Keeping those ads from showing up everywhere in our cities is also of paramount importance – we thank Spacing for its work fighting Mega Bins and other poorly conceived ad placement schemes in Toronto.
However, to say that there is no place within our cities for experiences like Dundas Square is a kind of cultural censorship. You may not like the culture these places represent but many do. Cities are complex organisms that tend to outflank restrictions when they are imposed. In an open society we see that all the time and react to it to make it work (Spadina and Dundas comes to mind as an example). Too many inflexible restrictions result in the horrors of old, Eastern-Block planning — urban landscapes that no one wants to be part of.
So let’s celebrate Toronto’s mix of urban experiences while also keeping a close watch for intrusions that really do imperil the social realm.
Cheers,
Robert
Editor, ReadingToronto.com
Steve, your post reminds me of an old Onion article:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/34162