Adland_ Searching for the Meaning of Life on a Branded Planet - James P. Othmer [65]
Of the eighteen impressions on iTunes, let’s say that six may have registered in the most subliminal fashion. This is not so bad. However, on a day of shameless procrastination, YouTube surfing, and supposed online research, the number of impressions that flash before my eyes would likely be more than several thousand. Today it’s a reasonable 158 online (213 total), most of which I will not remember, none of which I even considered clicking through to find out more.
Out-of-Home Advertising; Or, the Reclusive Hermit Briefly Leaves His Cave
Earlier I discussed the folly of the concept of an average day or an average American. Clearly I am not an average American. I am a weirdly idiosyncratic person of many moods and interests. Some days I am a Luddite hermit writing in silence for eight or more hours. Others I am a stressed-out Manhattanite repeatedly sprayed with media bird shot. I estimate that a typical two-way commute to Manhattan—driving or by train—and walking through its neighborhoods, having lunch with friends, attending a few meetings, and shopping would add another thousand impressions. This would include kiosks, signage on the Metro North platform and on the train, billboards on the West Side Highway, messages on the sides of trucks and buildings, sandwich boards, taxi roofs, elevator ads, cup wrappers, and so on—in short, everything in the swirling, constantly evolving diaspora of branding that is the streets of Manhattan.
Add another five hundred impressions for every fifteen minutes you happen to spend in Times Square.
But today I will not be going into Manhattan. Today, I’m in a suburb sixty miles from New York City, with two short errands to run, so this should be easy. The first is picking up my three-year-old son from preschool. This is a six-mile round-trip on back roads, briefly intersecting the town’s main artery, Route 6. At the end of my driveway I see a Century 21 sign on my neighbor’s lawn (219). Stuck in the ground next to that is a sign urging me to elect someone for town judge. I decide roadside political signs should count (220), even though I am now dreading the remaining 5.9 miles of my midday journey. I’m all for political activism, but really, do these crudely designed, generic pieces of cardboard and plywood have any impact on voter turnout? Could the Reelect Joe Schmo sign you saw this morning possibly be the deciding factor once the curtain closes on your voting booth? Some lawns have more than one sign. Others have five-by-seven-foot billboards. At every piece of public land that happens to be near an intersection, every square inch is claimed by political signage. The main intersection of the road I’m on and Route 6 alone has twenty-two ads for eleven different candidates. An independent tally of my journey tabulated by my nine-year-old daughter at a later date reveals sixty-three political signs (282).
Plus, I have the radio on an all-news station (291).
Then there’s the father in the parking lot wearing a T-shirt touting his construction company (292).
When I meet my son, he hands me a pumpkin mask that could only have been made by a child of extraordinary gifts and a promotional flyer for the Scholastic Book Club (293). I keep the radio off on the way home, preferring to talk with my son about pumpkin-mask-making technique and the problem with girls, specifically the Julias. One Julia would have been bad enough, but in his small playgroup there are two, and lately they’ve been tormenting his days, nights, and nap times. I’m able to convince him that girls, and maybe even the Julias, are not that bad. After all, there’s even a girl Power Ranger! But I’m still unable to do anything about those political signs (356). And why didn’t I know our neighbor’s house was for sale (repeat viewings count: 357)?
Two thoughts occur to me as I sort through the just-delivered mail (377) while making my way back into the house. First: Every single ad I have seen and heard to this