My family drove to South Carolina for spring break this year. As we travelled through the states (ten, in all), it struck me how different the Vermont landscape is from the rest — not because of our beautiful green mountains and lake (a lot of the areas we drove through had these), but rather due to the absence of one prominent feature — BILLBOARDS!
- Image via Wikipedia
Here is an assortment of the things advertised on the billboards we passed: beads, furniture, western wear, adult entertainment, suits, BBQ, fireworks, motorcycles, bridal wear, Shoney’s, short men’s clothing (sorry, all you tall men out there), cigarettes, lodging and, of course, the ever-famous Pedro at South of the Border. Did you know you pass 48 South of the Border billboards when heading south and 64 billboards when heading north?
I think Vermont’s law restricting the use of billboards may have been one of the best our state has ever enacted.
As a PR and marketing professional, I understand that billboards can be an effective way to reach an audience. Without billboards, how would we ever know where South of the Border is? (That one definitely crosses the line from effective marketing to purely obnoxious, but advertising clutter can be a blog topic for another time).
In many ways, the billboards along our nation’s highways are similar to the google and pop-up ads we encounter as we travel the information superhighway. And as annoying as these ads may be, we know the value and traffic they can bring to clients. If I had my choice though, I’d take the pop-ups and google ads on the web over billboards on our highways any day.
(And no, we didn’t stop at South of the Border.)
Thank you, Vermont!
