I would be interested to see before and after shots. Was their advertising problem really so bad or was just about the same as any other city?
Edit: Found one: http://banbillboardblight.org/?page_id=4251
Edit: Found one: http://banbillboardblight.org/?page_id=4251
I grew up in a suburb of Minneapolis that had similar restrictions on advertising, and I can say that it is very nice as a resident. Now when I visit however, I find it difficult to locate some of the new businesses.
I'm curious how this law has affected business revenue from tourists in Sao Paulo.
Doing indoor media "right" seems to be a yet unsolved problem in São Paulo. And still I'm not sure how relevant these terminals are in the smartphone- and tabled-filled environments they're usually spotted.
That does not address the business concern of capturing new business via signage, but the whole point here is that urban dwellers also have legitimate concerns and that private business interest should yield when reasonable collective concerns are being addressed.
[edit: in fact, there is startup opportunity here that can address both concerns, and it would seem to be a win-win. I don't have a car myself, but last time I rode one shutgun, the nav device (Lexus) had option to pepper the map with fast food, etc. icons. Hang your billboard there and spare the rest of us who object to being subjected to visual/textual noise that we have no means to avoid otherwise.]
Yes but the question is how much business do you get from signage.
I work for a construction company, you wouldn't know we exist by signage unless you drive down the industrial address our company is on. Most of our business comes from the signs on our trucks and trailers. On a single job I've had upwards of a dozen people come up to me and ask for a business card because they're impressed by our work.
We're not going to get huge business by a sign on main street, we get business by just doing our job because you get interested customers who might be hesitant and have questions. If they come and ask why us vs our next leading competitor, I can tell them "because they only use contractors, you might get good work and you might not".
I haven't been to a single restaurant in the past 5 years that either I didn't look for, or someone didn't refer/take me to.
I understand why some business owners might be annoyed if store front signage is restricted too much, especially if they're dependent on walk-in customers. However, I can't think of the last place I had to walk into that I didn't already know where it was.
However, I know around here there's Little Caesars pizza restaurants that keep popping up in plazas out of the way and they hire people to stand on the sidewalk to hold a sign. Why do I find this less offensive? Basically because someone who might need a job is actually getting paid, rather than a fee going to a signage company, and also because they're doing this on baron sidewalks that are basically only ever used by highschool kids anyway because no one walks in a non-verticalized city.
I'd be shocked if many people, on this site in paritcular, used street ads as their primary means of locating new businesses they'd been wanting to find.
This store, for instance, was fined R$300.000,00 for it's signage a couple months ago: http://img.vejasp.abril.com.br/t/2/t420x280/ponto-frio-megas... (the penguin is their trademark)
I was actually paying attention to that. They allowed business to put up their own sign on their own residence, but not other ads. For example you see the Mcdonalds sign at the Mcdonalds, the Xerox sign at the Xerox, and the Shell sign at the Shell. But I didn't notice anything other then that.
1) Do you think most tourists (be it in Sao Paulo or elsewhere) can speak the local language? Read it? Do the signs need to be very visual to make even sense?
2) Isn't there still a huge difference between the number of times you actually found an ad helpful ("Ah, okay.. Let's go there") vs. awkward, boring, distracting?
I especially like the first one. This country has less people than Sao Paulo. In fact, the local language is probably spoken (and read) by less people than those living in Sao Paulo. Billboards are everywhere, including hotlines, shortcodes, directions - and I cannot understand a single one. I'd argue that the average tourist here wouldn't care about the ads. They are for residents/citizens.
2. Ads weren't that localized to begin with. Billboards usually advertised appliances, commodities, magazines... not nearby places of interest. So they could have been anywhere, really, they were just "visual pollution" really. (I suppose by saying this I'm confirming your hunch?)
Concerning #2 still: when the bill got passed, the government started selling advertising space in the back of buses and inside the metropolitan transport system (trains and stations). I'm not sure if this is on purpose, but these ads have usually been far more localised (relevant to the route of the vehicle or the vicinities of the stations) than the billboards they somewhat replaced.
He traveled to São Paulo and this movie shows footage of the city. I learned of the city's ban from that movie.
(Edit: thanks Icebrain for correcting my spelling)
The movie shows before and after images and interviews people there, directly answering the question of the post I responded to.
After seeing the movie I even looked online to see if anyone posted those specific scenes (of São Paulo) online. I didn't find any, but if anyone else found them, please let me know.
But removing the ads for the business just under the ad does not strike me as better. It makes the business district look sleepy and quiet, rather than active and bustling.
And as a resident I don't mind ads telling me what I can do/get/buy at a location - that's sort of what I want when I visit a business district.
Only to people looking at pictures on the internet. When you're there, there's just as much commerce happening as ever. Note that Brazil is one of the few countries that was able to evade the global rape that the finanical industries committed over the past few years.
What was the last thing you bought that was directly attributable to seeing a street advertisement at a location?
You've never bought some food from a street vendor? Or gone in a coffee shop and bought a bagel? Or made a photocopy after seeing a shop on the street?
I've done all of those things, but never because of, or in a way that would have been altered by, the presence of advertising above said businesses.
Or starbucks? Those names don't in any way tell you what the business does. Without advertising above the shop you wouldn't have any idea what they sell.
Look at those photos again - the only thing they have is the name, with no indication about what those shops sell or do.
Should all small business have to advertise on TV until they have a household name?
Small businesses need not be able to afford a TV presence to advertise; indeed, I do not know what your neighbourhood is like, but in mine most small businesses already cannot afford large billboard-like signage on their stores and already rely upon simple names on their store-fronts. Their primary and most effective tool is, and always will be, positive word-of-mouth.
How nice for you - and even nicer for those places with large advertising budgets. But that is not the case for everyone. I don't need a huge billboard above a shop. But some ads that show what they do are quite helpful.
> "Campus Copy Shop"
So you suggest that all shops name themself as basically what they do? And what about a grocery store that has a copier? How would anyone find out about it unless they already go there?
> Their primary and most effective tool is, and always will be, positive word-of-mouth.
That's great when you live there, and an utter failure for visitors.
If I'm walking down a Manhattan street and I want to make a copy I'm looking for a picture of a copier or a sign that says "Copies made here".
There's no getting around the fact that socializing with the locals is inconvenient, but sometimes it can be a nice inconvenience.
It has the added benefit that if your business pisses off the locals (crappy service perhaps) they'll probably recommend a competitor if there is one.
Big stores don't really need much advertising - it's the small shops that need this, and it's exactly those smaller shops that would be less known to the locals.
I live in Toronto, so not too small. I know my neighbourhood very well actually. If you bumped into me on the street I could tell you:
1) Where to make a copy (small independent office store nearby, but it's expensive, also where to find others).
2) Where to grab a coffee / baked goods with a recommendation of which one I prefer (none of them being Starbucks or a Tims).
3) Your options for Indian, Thai, Italian food, etc.
4) Grocery stores and the quality of their produce.
5) Local mechanics.
6) Parks.
7) Parking.
And plenty of more specific shops.
Most of these places are small independent shops. They really didn't need any signage since I've walked or driven past many of them multiple times.
I've only lived in this specific neighbourhood for a year and a half. I've lived in the city for about 15 years.
You may not know where to go to get a copy, but many of us do and not through any kind of superhuman effort either.
Also, having the internet on my phone means I can quickly find most services I need in a specific neighbourhood when I'm feeling too shy to ask.
Quite helpful, for you. Useless, for me.
Neither of us should mistake our preferences for some kind of universal fact.
The public commons are a space that needs to be governed by the balancing of competing interests. Sao Paulo has evidently chosen to balance those interests in a way I would prefer given my preferences and needs, but you would not given yours.
The only thing that can be really said here is that you probably shouldn't move to Sao Paulo.
What is the sight one sees upon traveling through an area? A composite of many things, but including a large amount of the public faces of shops if there are any. Yet surely that sight has a considerable impact on the common areas.
I suppose you would also support legislation to regulate what color clothing people can wear if they go out in public?
Should shop keepers be required to have window shades on their stores so you are not offended by the display of merchandise?
I currently live in an area in which my window coverings are regulated to show an off-white color on the outside when closed, for what little that's worth. And almost all jurisdictions have some regulation on public clothing: public nudity is often punishable, for instance, thus excluding clothing with the color “invisibly transparent”. I neither directly support nor directly reject such laws, at the moment.
My best approximation of a “correct” solution might have involved upgrading everyone's perceptual filtering capability enough to obviate most commons regulations, but I've recently gone through a (possibly fake—I haven't stabilized the prionic meme filter yet) realization that humans are not at all what they seemed to me to be earlier on, and the inference propagation has not converged, so that shouldn't be treated as a stable opinion.
But really, why do people resort to controlling others this way? It's a real shame. Freedom and property rights are important, no matter what the visual flavor of the day.
To me, it's quite bad in any other city.