Billboards Push Message Into Third Dimension

Matt Haligman got the idea one night when he slung his blue jeans across a chair. Why not do the same thing on a billboard? You know, make a Goliath-sized pair of denim jeans and just drape them over an outdoor board.

How to do it? Well, his ad firm found a circus tent maker willing to stitch together a 20-foot pair of jeans. So, for several months last summer, on a busy section of Melrose Avenue near La Brea, a billboard stood with a 20-foot pair of blue jeans flung across it.

“People don’t want to look at billboards,” said Haligman, art director at the San Francisco ad firm Hal Riney & Partners, which created the billboard for Seattle-based Unionbay. “The object is to make the billboards so entertaining that people can’t help but see them.”

This is what billboards have come to.

The object, strangely, is to somehow make billboards look like anything but billboards. And the next trick is to get people to interact with them. One Australian ad firm, for example, is creating a billboard for a beer maker that will feature a live woman lounging on a raft in a swimming pool atop the board. Last year, Downey Community Hospital erected a billboard that featured a giant replica of a beating heart--which stopped beating twice when the mechanism went haywire. And Johnnie Walker Scotch has begun to plaster Southern California with billboard ads that feature phone numbers next to photos of bikini-clad models. The phone calls, alas, won’t result in any hot dates--just suggestive recordings that are ads for the liquor.

Last week, a handful of the top creative directors in the advertising business met in Los Angeles to decide who created the most effective outdoor advertisements in 1988. They are judges for the billboard industry’s Obie Awards. Although their decisions won’t be made public until May, they were willing to discuss the new trends in billboard advertising--and the role that Los Angeles is playing in these trends.

“I think of Los Angeles as the home of skateboards, surf boards and outdoor billboards,” said Don Byer, president of the New York-based Institute of Outdoor Advertising. “While the media itself is becoming more sophisticated, there seems to be a return to more simple messages.”

That could spell relief to residents of Los Angeles and Orange counties, who are bombarded by an estimated 18,000 billboards. And from coast to coast, an estimated 260,000 billboards are now vying for attention, estimates the New York-based Institute of Outdoor Advertising.

Ad executives say billboards have less than seven seconds to get their messages across. But at virtually every corner, the billboard industry is facing the threat of greater regulation. Last year, the Los Angeles City Council fell just one vote shy of banning future billboard construction inside city limits. Already, San Diego, Tucson, Phoenix, Houston and Dallas have banned new ones. And the city of Beverly Hills has never allowed them.

“Billboards creep up on you, kind of like smog,” said Ted Wu, chairman of the sign committee of the nonprofit organization Los Angeles Beautiful. “You can put down a newspaper or flick off the television or radio, but you can’t turn off billboards.” Wu, who is a Los Angeles architect, wants all billboards banned in Los Angeles.

Billboards, however, are big business. Last year, an estimated $1.8 billion was spent on billboards nationally--up 8% from 1987. And billboard companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars annually lobbying in Washington to fight off stricter regulations.

Well aware of the sentiments of a growing number of anti-billboard organizations, billboard companies like Gannett Outdoor Co. and Patrick Media Group are desperately trying to upgrade the image of billboards by publicizing the prize winners. And the ad agencies that create the boards are faced with the tough task of designing billboards that get attention--but that are not offensive.

A $50,000 billboard promoting the new “Earthquake” exhibit at Universal Studios was erected last week on Sunset Boulevard. It seems to have almost as many special effects as the attraction of the same name. A picture of a train--with bright headlights--appears to break away from the billboard. And other special effects make it look as if the billboard is engulfed in flames.

“This is a town where it takes a lot to be noticed,” said David Weitzner, president of worldwide marketing for MCA Recreation Services, a division of Universal’s parent company, MCA. “If you’re going to do a billboard, you might as well do it right.”

Next week, billboards will begin to appear all over the Los Angeles area that show a picture of a blindfolded man. A headline under it will simply state, “The Book the Phone Company Doesn’t Want You to Read is Coming.” Nowhere on the billboards will it say that Donnelley Information Publishing is behind these billboards.

But the following month, that illustration of the blindfolded man will be replaced by a photo of the Donnelley Directory--which competes with the phone company for directory business. “In a ‘tease’ campaign, there’s always the risk that people won’t understand it,” said Brad Ball, president of the Los Angeles ad agency that created the campaign, Davis, Ball & Colombatto Advertising. “But if we wanted to play it safe, we wouldn’t be in advertising.”

Indeed, billboards are fast becoming “more like theater than ads,” said Ted Shaine, senior vice president and associate creative director at the New York ad firm Ammirati & Puris, which creates those scenic billboards for Club Med.

Ever hear of a wall-to-wall carpeted billboard? Last year, Harding Carpets, a Toronto-based carpet maker, put 237 billboards around Canada that were made entirely of its carpeting. “It was a way to brighten up a dull Canadian winter,” explained Greg MacKeen, senior vice president of marketing. His company got a year’s worth of national publicity for the $600,000 gimmick, said MacKeen. “That’s about what it costs for one Super Bowl spot. Now, which would you rather have?”

To get people to pay attention to an outdoor advertisement for Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Hal Riney & Partners created a billboard that showed a giant blue cross and blue shield that both appeared to be falling off the board, under the headline, “Because accidents do happen.”

During last year’s primary elections, the Boston Globe hoisted a billboard that listed the names of 13 presidential candidates--and within 12 hours of the time any candidate dropped out of the race, a red line was painted through his name. The headline on this billboard: “It only takes a day for things to change.”

“We worried that vandals would cross out a name without us knowing it, but that never happened,” said William Murphy, vice president and creative director at the Globe’s Boston ad firm, Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos. “But we accomplished our task, which was to tell people that they can’t afford to miss one day of the Globe.”

Reebok, the athletic shoe maker, even tried to attract attention this year by placing a vertical billboard in a horizontal billboard slot. At first glance, some viewers had to assume that the billboard company simply put the wrong billboard in the wrong spot. “It was a way to get attention,” explained Bob Kuperman, executive vice president and creative director of Venice ad firm Chiat/Day.

And last summer, the San Diego Zoo lined up a series of three highway billboards that together showed an illustration of a snake curling its body to spell out the word zoo. “Far and away, the best way to reach tourists is with outdoor advertising,” said Bob Kwait, executive vice president and creative director at Phillips-Ramsey, the San Diego ad firm that created the zoo boards.

What’s next? Well, executives say that by the turn of the century printed billboards may be a thing of the past. Giant video screens--much like those seen at some sports facilities--will replace most. And in some cases, the ads on these boards will be beamed down by satellites.

To Ted Wu, who dislikes all outdoor advertising, these high-tech billboards of the future are especially frightening. He figures they’ll cause horrendous traffic jams. “Everyone would stop to look,” said Wu. “Instead of drive-in movies, you’d have drive-by movies.”

Moms Will Try to Nag You Into Car-Pooling

Remember how your mother used to tell you to share? Well, suppose funnyman Robin Williams’ mother told you to ride share. Would you? How about quarterback Joe Montana’s mom? Or perhaps Danny DeVito’s?

Next month, in a radio and print advertising campaign for the California Department of Transportation, these are just some of the celebrity moms who will be asking California drivers to car pool. And the ad agency behind this $1-million campaign is San Francisco’s Lowe Marschalk Inc.

But considering the traffic mess in Los Angeles, just how did a San Francisco ad shop land this Caltrans ride-sharing account last week? For one thing, it already handles some Amtrack advertising for Caltrans. What’s more, traffic in some parts of the Bay Area sometimes looks as bad as the San Diego Freeway at rush hour, said Tom Henry, management supervisor on the account. Posed Henry, “Have you seen the Bay Bridge lately?”

United Jewish Appeal Tries Offbeat Pitch

“It’s time to begin the real discussion about Jews and money.”

That print advertisement, which started appearing in Los Angeles-area newspapers last week, is just the beginning of a provocative ad campaign to raise money for the United Jewish Fund, which is the Los Angeles arm of the national United Jewish Appeal. The ad points out that about 60,000 Jews in Los Angeles live below the poverty line.

Several upcoming print ads also play off Jewish stereotypes. A headline above one ad that shows an elderly woman in a public shelter says, “Not all Jews retire to Miami.” And another headline on an ad that shows a vagrant sleeping on the street says, “Not all Jews grow up to be doctors.”

Why the offbeat campaign? “The purpose is to grab attention,” said Ronald F. Rieder, director of public affairs for the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles. And as might be expected, the organization has already received several calls complaining about the $300,000 ad campaign. Said Rieder, “Some think that we’re perpetuating Jewish stereotypes.”

Celebrity Spokespeople to Star at Award Fete

Perhaps few people are more appropriate to hand out awards at the most prestigious advertising competition in California than those who have starred in commercials. So, among the celebrities presenting awards at Thursday night’s Belding Awards at the Century Plaza Hotel will be Lindsay Wagner (Southern California Ford Dealers Assn.), Arte Johnson (am/pm mini market), Teri Garr (Diet Pepsi), Lynn Redgrave (Weight Watchers) and O. J. Simpson (Hertz).

Although he won’t be there in person, James Coburn (Mastercard) will present the grand prize sweepstakes award in a taped message. And even “Mac Tonight”--the man-in-the-moon look alike who starred in several McDonald’s ads--is expected to briefly shine over the Beldings.