I’ve seen a number of examples where a company will put up signage with the intention of getting attention. While they certainly are effective at getting people’s attention, it might not be the best idea to put these up on your own property. I’ve heard many people complain about having to go to the middle of the street and place a sign on a pole, which is just plain rude.
While I think that it’s great that companies are going out of their way to try and get you to notice them, it might be best to limit your exposure to these kinds of billboards to places where they can’t be seen from the street. We’ve seen billboards advertising the latest movie that we can’t seem to see from the street.
The problem with these billboards is that they often have a clear line between them and a building with a sign in front of it. I can’t think of a better example of a billboard than the one you see on a street corner that tells you to go to Hell and eat a live pig.
In what way can advertising be effective? Well, like everything else, its effectiveness depends on the context. If you are on a bus with your wife next to you, or sitting in a restaurant, or standing in a park, or on a bike, your effectiveness is probably good. It may be better if you are in a restaurant, however, because the restaurant owner will probably be able to see you.
Well, like everything else, advertising is effective in all the places you can see it. In the same way that the person sitting next to you in the bus in this example would probably be able to see the food on the menu, the person standing in the park would be able to see the advertisement.
Adverts are also effective in stores and billboards. In all cases, your presence in the store or billboard draws others to you.
This is not to say that people who work in advertising don’t have a job and have to do it, but that they may not actually be the ones doing the advertising. They may be doing the marketing. So in the case of this restaurant, the owner may be serving you and so you’ve been given a free pass to go. But you may be a customer and thus the owner may have to tell you to leave.
The way advertising works is that we can influence others’ behavior using the media we have available to us. Ads are placed in newspapers, magazines, TV, film, billboards, and even on the web. Many of these ads are designed to manipulate us into purchasing something we did not want to buy. They are designed to convince us to buy something, but without using direct speech.
The reason that we have ads is that we’ve taken a cue from advertisers who have been trying to sell us something to sell you. We may have had ads that were designed to manipulate us, but they were designed to attract us. They are not a social phenomenon. In fact, they are not a social phenomenon.