The Great Outdoors - Print 21 magazine article

Space - the final frontier. This is the story of the Outdoor Advertising Enterprise and its mission to seek out new places to hang grande format digitally printed graphics. But what if local authorities seek to limit or even reduce the amount of space available for this output? Andy McCourt looks into how some local authorities are opposing all moves to expand outdoor media opportunities. Oh, and there's an ex-PM too.

 

I confess. I love outdoor advertising and, these days, that means I love wide and grande format digital printing because that's the process by which the majority of it is produced. Unless you are in India, where most billboards are still hand-painted and where smooth-skinned, wide-eyed smiling beauties with jewels, alabaster teeth, and tar-black hair exhort you to see the latest Bollywood movie.

I mean, who can resist the 'Heineken refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach' campaign of the '80s or the one where they stuck a car to a motorway-side billboard for a week and then ripped it off leaving a gaping hole with the words 'How did they pull it off? - Bostik' underneath? Or Cathy Freeman 50 metres high on a Sydney office building leading into the Olympics?

One of my favourites was for an Italian Fiat car a couple of years ago that went 'If it were a lady, it would get its bottom pinched.' To which a graffiti artist with feminist leanings had rightly added 'If this lady was a steamroller, she'd squash you flat.'

Putting the art in graphic art
Outdoor emphasises the art in graphic arts like no other. It has to condense a sometimes complex message into a 0.5 second 'impact' opportunity and deliver graphic excellence, high colour fidelity and corporate brand reinforcement. I feel like a Toohey's. It's Time. In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream.

Nothing stirs the emotions quite like a strong out-of-home campaign. After all, there it is on our streetscape, in the bus shelter, in the window of the store, across the freeway, along the fence, on the sides of buses, trucks and trams. In this column's tradition of quoting forgotten song lyrics:

"Sign Sign everywhere a sign
Blocking out the scenery breaking my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign"

A good bottle of red to the first person identifying the band that sang that. Clue: they were Canadian. No Googling.

Keating's creeping cancer
No doubt the above lyrics would find a sympathetic ear with ex-Australian Prime Minister, PJ Keating, (another forgotten rock band-member), who told the NSW Local Government Association's 2006 annual congress, with ramrod directness, that the outdoor advertising industry was "a creeping cancer which robbed the public of their enjoyment of the natural environment." He urged councils to be sceptical of the outdoor advertising industry and that; "knocking them back and kicking them in the bum should be a national sport." Ouch Paul, talk about being savaged by a gummy sheep!

Unfortunately, local authorities have taken this to heart because since Keating's October 2006 diatribe, a rash of Development Control Plans and Environmental Planning Bye-Law proposals have spewed forth from local authorities, moved by PJ's still powerful rhetoric.

One can only presume that these same local authorities exercised stringent DCP enforcement on mug posters of PJK during his political campaigning years and have also banned any poster larger than a stamp for 'Keating the Musical.'

Kuringai causes chaos
Local authority legislation versus State environmental planning is where the frontline lies in the battle for space to display wide and grande format digitally-printed graphics. Take Kuringai Council in NSW for example. I'm not singling them out but it happens to be the area where I live. They have adopted a highly aggressive stance against excessive outdoor advertising and even proposed controls over what shops can display in their windows.

Retail businesses in the area were up in arms recently when the council proposed bans on filling windows with graphics or sign writing, indicating that shoppers wanted to see window displays of goods, not 'Sale' and 'New Seasons Stock' banners. This intrusive approach by councils can only serve to drive businesses away and into more commerce-friendly local authorities where councils maintain a respectful arms-length distance from commercial enterprises that pay rates and taxes.

NSW State Environmental Policy Number 64, amendment 2, refers to advertising and signage. Local authorities meet to either endorse or reject its recommendations. It deals mostly with transport corridors and "advertising that can be seen from a public place or reserve". Pardon my naivety, but isn't the idea of out-of-home advertising that it should be seen? Shouldn't all advertising be seen from a 'public place'?

Anyway, the State amendment seeks to introduce a 'public benefit' test for advertising adjacent to transport corridors; remove prohibitions for advertising adjacent to railways, freeways and tollways; remove prohibitions on advertising at sporting facilities in open space zones and - surprise surprise - provide exempt development provisions for temporary political advertising.

This all sounds positive for the out-of-home advertising industry and large format graphics but...Kuringai's position is to oppose the State amendments, citing the Pacific Highway and North Shore rail lines as cutting through its turf and, although the RTA owns the rights to the highway and the SRA to the railway embankments, Kuringai wants final vetting of what billboards go up and if they go up at all.

Kuringai also opposes the amendment that introduces guidelines for advertising on bridges. The State guidelines seem very sound, covering safety, visual clutter; design excellence (although I'm not sure if a public servant is qualified to insist on Bodoni over Sabon typeface!). It states it wants "more control over what kinds of advertisements are permissible along transport corridors and bridges."

Amendments to State Rail-owned land advertising were also opposed by Kuringai Council, with the ludicrous challenge that "Council is concerned over the term 'visible' and what the definition actually means...." Hey, how about I patent 'new improved invisible advertising... Council-endorsed! Guaranteed that you will see nothing...just fill in the blank space by thinking of a product or service you would like to buy!'

The only part of SEP #64 supported by this Council in May was that relating to increased advertising control at council-controlled sporting venues, presumably because the revenue goes back to them.

Bridge over troubled hoardings
The point is that, properly managed, outdoor advertising can provide revenue to pay for public-spirited projects such as pedestrian bridges, upgrades to trains and train stations, and lower tolls. In 2006, Botany Council opposed a pedestrian bridge to be built by Eastlakes Golf Club and funded entirely by advertising. The bridge took 135,000 pedestrians a year off a busy road and linked the two sides of the course. It went before the Land and Environment Court and Botany Council lost - the bridge will go ahead, funded by outdoor advertising.

Out-of-home advertising also serves to inform, decorate and even amuse. While there must be controls for safety, accepted decency and sensitivity to culturally sensitive streetscapes, it appears that Keating's message has got through to many Local Government Authorities and they are just flat-footed opposing any outdoor advertising; especially the kind that returns revenue to other authorities such as the RTA, State Rail etc.

The Outdoor Media Association is actively working with the NSW State Government on these new amendments but has expressed concern at the "complexity of arrangements between the State authority and local government."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In its Development Control Plan (DCP), Kuringai Council says it considers as inappropriate the following kinds of advertising: flashing or moving signs; balloons; signs advertising an activity other than that associated with the building to which the sign is attached; sandwich boards; window or wall signs above awning height; signs on stationary vehicles; fluorescent colours and the painting of buildings in corporate colours.

Joseph Stalin would have been proud of such intrusion into the world of trade and commerce. Send the outdoor admen and women to a Gulag and smash the NURs, VUTEks, HP Scitexes, Incas, Océs etc. While there are some sensible regulations for safety and public comfort, the overall message is that councils want to take control of out-of-home advertising.

Now if I lived in Tilba-Tilba, NSW or Bright, Vic or Maleny, Qld or any other historic town themed in harmony with its heritage and environment, I would not want huge 48-sheeters advertising 'McDonalds 20km' in the town, but local authorities appear to be adopting an aggressive anti-outdoor stance, whereas State authorities are moving with the times and recognising that outdoor advertising can be both productive, useful, aesthetically acceptable and a revenue-earner to take the pressure off the public purse.

If Mr Keating's message to impressionable LGA officers translates into law, it's certain we will have the outdoor advertising recession we don't have to have.

The musical will become a farce.