I’m sure someone else is doing this but I’m going to start my own one of these days–The Bad Billboard Project.
Basically I’m going to stop my car on the freeway in the middle of traffic whenever I see a bad billboard and take a photo with the digital camera I haven’t bought yet and then I’m going to criticize them here and see if I can get anyone to take issue with me.
I’m not sure anything I find will be quite as humorous as this but we’ll see. I almost crashed when I drove past that in Utah County the first time.
Some of the categories into which I will cram my criticism will include:
- Billboards that have small type and are therefore unreadable at any speed over 5 mph
- Billboards that have at least 20 visual elements because the advertiser wanted to make sure that people got it all, therefore insuring they get nothing
- Billboards featuring what is obviously the advertiser’s child (“My son is so cute and I’m sure everyone else will think so too so let’s put him on the billboard we’re paying $3K for every month”)
- Billboards that were obviously designed by the billboard company’s secretary because the advertiser couldn’t afford to hire even a mediocre designer for $500
- Billboards that don’t make sense in any language. Speaking of which, there was a company doing a lot of billboard advertising here in Utah last year called UtahBuild.com. They had these billboards with a guy next to a computer and it said “It’s like going to the home show every day.”
Seriously, that’s what it said. Are there really people who would go to a homeshow every single day if they could? I mean, I’m sure there are four or five in the United States, but they probably aren’t even in Utah to see this billboard.
Personally I can’t think of many things worse than going to a homeshow every single day. No wonder that guy on Home Improvement had a cocaine problem.
