Most Billboards Suck
April 9th, 2007
I put well over 1,000 miles on my car in the last week. Among the things that became clearer to me than ever before (like: an iPod is an essential device when you’re 100 miles from nowhere) is this: Most billboards suck.
Don’t the people creating these things understand that the people looking at these things are typically breezing by at 65 or 75 miles per hour? Why pepper them with photos you have to stare at for five minutes to see what the hell it is? Or words so small you need to pull over to the side of the road and squint to read the damn thing?
I think the best test for a billboard might be to print the proposed design onto a 3×5 card and have someone hold it in the air and walk by the creative director’s desk. Briskly. If the creative director can’t read it easily, then it’s back to the drawing board.
Sturgeon’s Law tends to hold true with most things in life, but in the case of billboards I suspect it’s understating the number.
April 12th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Hallelujah! Did I spell that correctly? Would make a good billboard, correctly spelled, come to think of it. Most ad agencies can’t for the life of ’em do a good billboard. Nice Altoids and a handful of others are the only good ones I’ve seen in 25 years.
The xxx video store ones catch the eye, but they are, er, impulse boards located near the very exit they promote, so they are more like store signs. Billboards that really work are memorable and work to reinforce a branding program that plays out through other media. Most people who do billboards have NO IDEA.