The modern billboard got its start in the late 1800s in a competitive rough-and-tumble billposter industry. The outdoor industry is now a multimedia, global operation where Viacom, Clear Channel, and Lamar are now the dominate players. This series examines how the billboard industry formed and developed, along with its controversies, excerpting heavily from Buyways by Catherine Gudis, 2004. And what is the vision of the future of these advertising titans? Are you ready for Branded Cities, Digital Billboards, and Walking Billboards? It’s a growth industry.
Billboard Industry Forms an Association
Billboards Formulate Public Opinion
Billboards and the Culture of Mobility
Billboard Industry Consolidation
Billboards and the Highway Beautification Act 1965
Billboards and Culture Jammers
Fictional Billboard Burner – Doc Sarvis
Personally, I detest outdoor advertising in all forms, and there’s no doubt that the world would be a better place if they were removed from the landscape.
Most famous of all New-Deal images is “After the Louisville Flood,” by photographer Margaret Bourke-White, which features black flood victims in line at a relief agency being virtually run down by the looming white family of the “
