I’m fucking sick of the blatant and ubiquitous advertising I see around Halifax. I understand the need for marketing in a capitalist culture, but it’s becoming desensitizing and distracting (soft drink ads now cover entire buses and are projected on apartment building walls…’nuff said). I’d be interested to see how an environment saturated with advertisements – which are designed to attract your attention – correlates with the number of car accidents. Am I the only one who’s pissed that we’re forced to tune this shit out so we can concentrate on more important things (like not running over pedestrians while driving to work)?
—Killer cola
This article appears in Aug 6-12, 2009.
I guess my brain is on ad-block – I’ve been saturated for so long, I really don’t look at it anymore. It’s good ol’ supply and demand, just as it was when Ug sold Arg the first stone wheel.
Get yourself your own filter. Preferably something that you can roll.
YOU JUST PROVED COMMENT ADVERTISING WORKS
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1-800-ADS4YOU
There have been ads completely covering buses for more than 15 years, I’d prefer a projected ad as opposed to one that generates tons of waste paper, and if a billboard will distract you from driving, someone jingling their keys for you must send you into apoplexy.
If you’re doing the regular eye movements you’re supposed to practice while driving and not “deer in headlights” at the shiny things, it’s really not that much of a distraction.
Has anyone ever been to NY? They have giant IMAX sized screens on street corners! I don’t think our painted buses really hold a candle to that.
i don’t need to be reminded just how bad Bell Aliant’s overpriced and underwhelming products & services SUCK while i’m taking a stroll down Skin Garden.
besides, all that ugly advertising sullies the streetscape, even the drivers look embarrassed to be whoring themselves like that, hauling those ridiculous mobile billboards up/down the strip.
like i said, we’re not amused… so fuck off Aliant, you’re only pissing people off – not *earning* customer satisfaction. maybe put some of that advertising money into improving your crappy (not-so) high-speed internet service, b/c the competition blows your lame asses out of the ethersphere.
I agree with SwampDonkey. You really should be noticing the large 60+ ft long busses that drive around the city anyway, regardless if they are painted white or covered in advertisements. If you didn’t notice them, then we’d have problems, it’s not like they are sneaky. So what are your thoughts on the pink breast cancer awareness bus? On the one hand they aren’t marketing a product, but on the other hand they are covered with an advertisement just the same. Thoughts?
I don’t think we have too many ads *yet*, but I’ve seen a few projections on buildings now and I wonder when it will stop. It’s disgusting to walk in a world dressed for consumerism, even if it’s the lifestyle we choose.
Miles!
AWESOME
Yes those evil corporations whose taxes don’t pay for things like health care, social services, welfare, etc.
Alert – they tried communism in Russia and Cuba and it failed miserably. In China they’re more capitalistic than the US. Don’t believe me? Looks at Beigien and Shanghai and other cities.
@Bro Tim – there’s an appropriate time/place for everything – a cavalcade of mobile billboards being paraded around town on motorbikes – that’s just obnoxious.
btw, i can’t seem to locate this place you call ‘Beigien’?? ;~}
Ads work, we’re talking about it aren’t we?
@Fever, well sure, if the goal of obnoxious advertiser X is to irritate ‘potential’ customers, then yeah, the ads work… ensuring that i (for one) will go out of my way to AVOID X’s products/services in the future.
subtle/clever/thoughtful/meaningful advertising works… whereas in your face visual NOISE causes most people to just roll their eyes in contempt. in my mind, product X ends up in the shit pile.
Absolutely tech, but the mindless consumer (which is 80% of the populace) doesn’t care. It’s all about exposure, whether it’s good or bad. After all, it works for 90% of the products on the market. Christ, it works for bank accounts.
I don’t mind clever nice advertising, like the colourful busses, but it pisses me off that Aliant can drive around town wasting gas and adding to their carbon footprint just to advertise. While Bell is giving out plantable bookmarks. Gee, I wonder who I’ll like more…
People Are Stupid said, “I don’t mind clever nice advertising, like the colourful busses [sic]”
really?? transforming the exterior of a public transit vehicle into a giant billboard, with a hideous paintjob. what is so ‘clever’ about that?
most advertising is not clever at all – as Dr Fever says, much of it is created to appeal to the lowest common denominator… like yourself, for example.
So people who enjoy colourful things are the lowest common denominator?
And I can’t seem to figure out why you wrote sic, what did I spell wrong?
well, when i think of ‘colourful things’ that are enjoyable – a bus that looks like it’s been dipped into a paint bucket of gaudy advertising – isn’t the first thing that pops into my mind.
but if that’s what appeals to the zeitgeist – buses dipped in advertising – then yeah, i think we could call that the lowest common denominator (the term is misused, i know). that kind of overt advertising doesn’t appeal to me at all, it offends me almost.
anyway, my mistake about the ‘busses’… well, i’ve never seen it spelled that way, before now. i spell it ‘buses’ (which is also correct and i think more common). i take the ‘sic’ back.