Signs

The average Chinese person sees 10 times more advertisements than the average American. Or maybe it was the Japanese see more. Either way, as much as we think we're an ad based culture, we pale in comparison to our eastern brothers, who refuse to let vacant wall space go unsold. Maybe its because Americans are more concerned with a uniform sense of aesthetics, or we feel more strongly about where ads should and shouldn't go, or maybe we're just not as creative at coming up with ways to advertise, but the result is that our culture is less 'in-your-face' with product promotion than other cultures (believe it or not). Ne w York, however, may be the exception, or as close as we have to one. We all know that if capitalism had an address, it would be somewhere in New York, so its no wonder that the city of business is full of advertisements.

Midtown beats you over the head with advertisements. I remember from my earliest trips to New York being amazed at the glitz, the glamor and the ubiquity of dazzling, flashing billboards. Times Square is the root of a vine of billboards, stretching down every street and avenue in the area. Every surface reminds you to buy, drink, and watch.

Mostly watch. I've been surprised by how many of the billboards are for entertainment. The area above the Broadway Ticket office is covered with signs for every show with a curtain, usually promising a 'foot stomping good time', 'an unforgeable experience' or a show 'not quite as good as the movie'. Then over there are a collection of ABC screens, which makes sense because it is their flagship location for Good Morning America. Then there are signs for NBC. For the baseball post season on TBS, for HBO's Dexter, for Nurse Betty, for channels I haven't even heard of. What is it about Times Square that makes for such good TV advertising?

Near my office are two massive billboards which in the past 4 months have shown nothing but TV and movie advertisements, yet have rotated every 3 weeks or so. That isn't even the impressive part. What's most amazing is that they take down the advertisement a week before the movie is actually released. They don't wait until the movie is out to move on to the next big thing, they're already pushing the next big thing before they even had a big thing in the first place. The spot hosted ads for The Sorcerer Apprentice, Charlie St. Cloud, Scott Pilgrim, Devil, and most recently The Event, which I need to give some credit to for actually still being up when the show premiered, unlike the other names on the list.

The Event advertising has been memorable in other ways. Last week as I walked through the square, I noticed a man in a white shirt and black tie on a soap box shouting warnings of the end of the world, or so I thought. As I got closer, I realized he was simply warning everyone of 'The Event, on Monday Night.' I felt cheated, that New York now needed to pay people to act crazy, rather than utilize its ample supply of naturally crazy citizens. In the end NBC had the last laugh, I watched the first half of the show Monday, before realizing I just didn't care. Score that one for the advertisers. Thank goodness they're not 10 times more powerful than they already are.