The motz of Butz: The advertising makes bad publicity for the advertising

What this is about: my grumbling is actually almost always about the same thing. It's about the fact that advertising is perceived as extremely boring, unentertaining and annoying. I've written about this phenomenon before. Perhaps with this column I will succeed in not falling on deaf ears again.

What does Grenoble want? The green government wants to ban 326 billboards from the city center and plant trees in their place. São Paulo, a city of 11.5 million people, has gone even further. As early as 2007, it issued a ban on billboards, signs, advertising tubes on cabs and flyers. These affect the environment and the architecture. Imagine Times Square in N.Y. without advertising!
Day not only with cooking and eating.

In Switzerland, there have not yet been any concrete moves to reduce or even abolish advertising space. But if public advertising no longer offers any entertainment value, I'm not sure that the city of Zurich could do without 2.2 million in rental income.

I have often suggested, often grumbled, that stricter rules should be imposed on advertising in public spaces, for example. Anyone who rents an entire streetcar for their advertising should have to submit their advertising to a professional and leash jury. I give the Zoo streetcar an okay. The Sunrise Cobra should be covered in black. With few exceptions, the billboards are covered with miserable subjects. It is incomprehensible who pays the costs for such ineffective, because invisible, advertising and risks being seen as a polluter of the public space for the citizens.

My theory is that advertising is all about getting viewers excited about a product or at least reminding them of it in an entertaining, surprising and simple way. In column 22/2014, I tried to analyze the message of three random posters hanging next to each other. I, at least, could not figure it out after studying them for a while. Annoying. But I hope that consumers won't even look at them anymore and thus won't get upset about it. In the meantime, you advertisers could use the time to get out of the advertising angst phase and surprise mankind with creativity.

By the way, this request does not only apply to advertising in public spaces. Anyone who agrees with me and wants to take on this optimization resolution for 2015 should email me an okay: theophil@tingerbutzmarketing.ch. The stand-up of the week was the huge rally for freedom and against terrorism in Paris.

Theophil Butz, graphic designer, advertising agency owner, inspirer and for more than three years now also a mothballs for the Werbewoche readers. Please send any relevant information to theophil@undbutz.ch.