Clear Channel Billboards--Is The Fascist Ad Creep In Your Town, Too?

[frank frankly]

The billboards are changing. Clear Channel owns 60% of them.

To say they have become negative is too mild. It is an orchestrated mindfuck of epic proportions. Notice the heavy use of the second person "you." Very deliberate message: you are a criminal, you are sick, and your family is fucked. I guess the next one is a picture of Ari saying "You better watch what you say."

Here are some examples from both Bus Stop and Billboard ads:

YOU Can Get Free AIDS Treatment!
(Capitals as they appear. This beauty is only on display in the hood. The YOU and AIDS are much larger than the other type.)

Do You Want To Be Responsible For All Those Dead Trees?
(Ad trying to get college students to pay late fees on books...is this a problem all of a sudden? Shows a forest of tree stumps.)

You Will Go To Jail, And They Will Have to Tell Their Friends
(Cable Theft Ad. Shows two children looking up in shame at "you").

These Hands Get 20% Off
(An Ad for car insurance. Shows a pair of white hands (a cop's badge slightly visable) writing a traffic ticket. This one just sprang up everywhere.)

Most Likely To Succeed (At Hiding Her Addiction)
(A yearbook picture of a 12 year old girl.)

[democracyindanger]

1. Um...

...ClearChannel may own the billboards, but they don't do the ads. They just rent the space. Relax.

[frank frankly]

2. so these aren't national ads?

They certainly aren't regional to where I live.

[frank frankly]

3. Are these things elsewhere in the us of a???

:kick:

[Lizz612]

4. Car Insurance ad is

a national ad campaign its in the mags and papers too, as for the other ones only the AIDS one sounds creepy to me.

[frank frankly]

5. maybe you have to see them to fear them.

or maybe its that they all appeared literally over the last 16 months.

[htuttle]

6. Does Clear Channel get a tax break for running 'PSA' billboards?

They might be from Clear Channel. I know that Radio Stations and TV stations used to be required to air 'public service announcements', but I thought they got rid of that requirement, and now they get cash for it (in the form of tax deductions).

I wonder if they do the same thing with 'public service' billboards?

[no name no slogan]

7. At least SOMEBODY noticed.

My wife works in advertising, in a fairly small vertical market. She used to do buying for ad space, right before Clear Channel started taking over every small outdoor advertiser in the nation-- after the 1996 telecommunications act, possibly the worst piece of legislation enacted in the last quarter-century (after "welfare reform", that is).

And to those who think that the owners of these billboards don't have the ability to veto content: sorry, but you are WRONG. Just this month my wife had to nix an ad by a liquor company because the ad was deemed "too racy" for the market. This happens more often than not in this industry.

I believe something happened with one of the major news dailys or news weeklys around the time of the Iraq invasion. A group of concerned citizens tried to buy space for an anti-war message in the publication, yet were refused by the advertising department. Freedom of Speech? On paper, maybe. In reality? No.

Advertisers may refuse advertising at any time, and have a lot of control over the content of the messages they display. And the fact that Clear Channel sponsored those pro-war rallies last spring makes this fact doubly alarming.

[frank frankly]

8. THANK YOU!!!!

thank you
thank you
thank you

I've been watching these abominations creep through my town.

there are everywhere.

[clar]

9. Lucky me

No billboards in Vermont. Haven't had any in over 30 years.

[frank frankly]

10. you are lucky

that is awesome! I didn't know that about Vermont. how wonderful!

[DBoon]

11. OBEY!

Check out these billboards:

http://www.obeygiant.com/index2.html

[frank frankly]

12. you are so bookmarked!

fantastic!!!

that may have made my day!

[frank frankly]

13. and it explains the "obey" stickers I've seen around

:kick:

[Cascadian]

14. In Seattle too.

They also own several of the radio stations. They are also poised on taking over a TV station if rumor is correct.


John