Sao Paulo Billboard Ban Increases Digital Ads
Brazil’s Largest City Has Taken Down Nearly 18,000 Advertising Signs
Nov 26, 2008
It would challenge the power of even a Katrina-sized hurricane to wipe out 18,000 outdoor advertising boards, but Sao Paulo did it with one sweeping law and is still celebrating the removal of its infamous "visual pollution." Even some advertisers, ad agencies, outside ad media and politicians are getting used to the new look and finding benefits in the change.
Mayor Gilberto Kassab and the Sao Paulo city council pulled the trick in 2006 with their "Clean City" law, effective January 1, 2007, banning billboards and most other large outside advertising. Less than two years later, TIME Magazine says the city of 11 million has removed 15,000 billboards, 1,600 signs and 1,300 metal advertising panels. Amid all the controversy, Kassab has been re-elected.
The sweeping law, most notable for its boldness, width and ease of enforcement, is now looked upon as a model for correcting other urban ills.
"One of the big impacts is that it provides a stimulus for other similar measures,’ Kassab told TIME.
Billboard Jungle
Prior to 2007, Sao Paulo was recognized as one of the billboard and sign jungles of the world. Critics said the signage hid much of the city’s attractive stone architecture, as well as some of its worst business operations. BoingBoing.com said once the billboards were removed, some small sweat-shop companies siting behind them were exposed for the first time.
But the biggest response has been to Sao Paulos’s cleaner, more open look and the rediscovery of some of the city’s elegant buildings which have long been hidden behind billboards.
The mayor said the total ban was brought on by the ad industry’s lack of compliance with the previous billboard regulations and the difficulty in enforcing the rules. Sao Paulo ad agencies reportedly had bought just about every possible ad space in the city, from main street billboards to apartment wall spaces where they could hang huge ad banners.
As the number of illegal boards and signs grew out-of-control it became difficult for the city to determine which were legal and which weren’t. Kassab said the banning of all huge signs made it easier to enforce the law. The city has provided tax incentives to help small businesses clean up some of the mess that showed up after the billboards were removed.
Planes Can Pull Ad Banners
The city attempted to extend the ban to ad banners pulled by planes and blimps, but a court rejected that section of the law on grounds that Brazil’s federal government controls airspace, not the city.
Advertisers fought the Clean City law. "We live in a consumer society, and the essence of capitalism is the availability of information about products," Marcel Solimeo of the Commercial Association of São Paulo, told the New York Times in 2006.
However, residents liked the new look and Kassab and the city council survived the attacks. The industry has since concentrated on digital ads within buildings and public vehicles.
"From crisis comes opportunities and out-of-home advertising is now in bars, in airports, on the metro, on buses," Angelo de Sa Jr., vice president of Indoormidia, told TIME. "One industry died and another one was born."
The mayor has said the city will eventually authorize a small number of outdoor ads, but will monitor and rigidly enforce new regulations.
Times Square Flashing Boards
Many Americans have expressed support of the Sao Paulo ban in Internet comments. At the same time they acknowledge they don’t expect anything similar in the United States, citing the strength of the American business community and the strong acceptance of advertising as a form of free speech.
What, some asked, would Times Square be without all those big bright flashing boards?
References:
- Streets Are Paved With Neon’s Glare, by Larry Rohter, New York Times, Dec. 12, 2006
- Sao Paulo goes advertising-free, by Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing.com, April 14, 2007
- Sao Paulo Sells Itself, By Andrew Downie, TIME Dec. 1, 2008
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