Advertising is a constant in all of our lives, whether we are consuming it directly or indirectly. We are being marketed to in increasingly sophisticated ways. Algorithms track our purchasing preferences and habits online and in turn, adverts are hyper-personalised.
So then, in this technological rat race for our eyeballs and our wallets. It would appear to be counter intuitive that businesses are still investing in and producing, the thousands of posters that line our inner-city streets.
From handmade a4 flyers, to the giant posters that line the temporary walls of building sites, and everything in between. A walk around Melbourne’s greater metropolitan area is not complete without copping an eyeful of this traditional advertising method. The real curiosity towards the continued prominence of the poster as a route of reaching potential consumers, lies in the why.
Why is it that in an age where advertisers can reach us in our homes and live in our pockets, are they choosing to be plastered on the side of a crumbling brick wall, down a dimly lit alley?
The most obvious answer to that question, is the cheapness of guerrilla advertising for those with a small budget. Be that a local business or a small band with a gig on the weekend. Ransacking your Nan’s printer to produce fifty a4 posters that will then be stuck on every lamppost in a two kilometre square radius. Will never not be a cheap and effective way to advertise to the masses quickly. Melbourne is a densely populated city, so eyeballs are readily available. Moreover, though they too are temporary. Posters are a slower form of communication, imbued with a semi-permanence. When compared to the milliseconds an advert gets exposed to our eyes when scrolling through our phones, the poster we walk past on the way to the supermarket has been up there since the dawn of time.
Another, less tangible reason for the poster’s longevity and fondness. Is its innate tie to humans, to humanity. The posters we see when out and about were designed, sent to a printing press, then loaded into the back of a beaten-up white van, to be slapped onto the side of a building, by humans. There is an inherent connection to other people, which an AI generated instagram ad is completely void of. Whether humanity alone is a big enough motivator for people to do what the poster pleads of us. I am not so sure.
Our phones are listening to us, posters are not. This results in posters for any number of events and products, coming into our eye-line. We are used to personalised ads that insulate and exacerbate our bubble of likes and interests. Often preventing us from finding things that the algorithm does not perceive to be of our taste. A poster does not attempt to be personalised, quite the opposite in fact. Meaning that it is one of the few ways we can have our eyes opened to new things, and wander out of our comfort zone.
Lastly, is the passivity of posters. Rather than the constant, and frankly invasive, barrage of advertising we receive through technology. The poster offers a comparatively passive alternative to grab our attention. We may even walk past a poster several times before we even notice it. It does not pester.
The poster is a small, but colourful piece in the fabric of our city. Long may advertisers continue to view them as a valuable and effective means of communication.
