Free of Advertising, Cities Can Flourish and Be Happy

What’s the Latest Development?

Five years after São Paulo, Brazil, began fighting visual pollution by banning billboard, poster and bus advertisements, people report being happier with their city and business leaders have become more forward thinking. The ban was the result of the ‘Clean City Law’ of 2006 which required the removal of tens of thousands of unregulated advertisements. “Anna Freitag, the marketing manager for Hewlett-Packard Brazil, said her company had never considered how inefficient billboards and the like were until they were illegal.”

What’s the Big Idea?

Some Americans now looks at more than 4,000 advertisements per day. Since the ban in São Paulo, which with 12 million residents is the largest metropolis in the Southern Hemisphere, people can again see the city’s architecture and businesses have been forced to reevaluate their marketing strategies in ways that connect more directly with consumers. Marketing experts say the industry has grown complacent with public advertising even though it executes a ‘call to action’ less effectively than social media advertising.

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