On the way back home this afternoon, I again drove past the recently installed Festival Cairns signs... strategically positioned along the highways. There's also one along the Massacre Alley (named due to the willful destruction of our gardens, formally known as Collins Avenue).
I suspect there's some on the south side and elsewhere around the town also.
I sighted this one along the Captain Cook Highway (you know, that road named after that white fella that stole land, raped the locals and finally got his comeuppance by some natives elsewhere in the Pacific).
Between the Holloways and Yorkeys roundabout, Council have installed a billboard with dates, venues and times all about the upcoming Festival.
While I'm a strong advocate for this annual community festival, I think whoever at Council agreed to install such signs on a 100kph stretch of highway, needs their head read.
I defy anyone to read anything on the sign, whilst 400 meters on the approaching roundabout and going at the designated speed. How stupid. It doesn't take anyone without a degree in 101 Marketing that this is not only impossible to digest, with the amount of detail on it, but a most appalling and dangerous position to locate such a sign.
These are all examples of someone not designing an appropriate medium for the location. The one along Massacre Alley is also not the place for such a sign. With all the changes to the new roading there - I'll blog on that another time - it's a stupid, stupid, stupid place to be putting a complicated and detailed billboard for people to read.
If they were simple, only with the key logo and dates, and maybe with the website address / telephone number for more info.. and that's all, then they would achieve their objective. As a graduate of 20 years in the marketing biz, we aimed to ensure outdoor signage was "bus-proof".. whereby you could read and gain the primary message / advertisement in the seconds that you drive past it.
These billboards fail their mission. Another waste of money, let along the dangerous distraction that they posses to all who drive past.
1 comment:
I agree with you about the Festival Cairns sign. It is dangerous not only in the position but because the far too small print means that people will take their eyes of the road to try and decipher what it's all about. Surely Main Roads cannot allow this sign to continue being placed where it is!!
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