Cash-strapped cities, schools say: ‘Your Ad Here’

CARLA K. JOHNSON

ROBERT RAY

Asso­ci­ated Press

CHICAGO — Seven vinyl ban­ners draped this month along one of Chicago’s most iconic bridges, adver­tise­ments some have dubbed “a visual crime” and “com­mer­cial graf­fiti,” are reviv­ing a debate about how gov­ern­ments raise money in tough eco­nomic times.

In the after­math of the Great Reces­sion, a pub­lic school dis­trict in Col­orado is sell­ing ads on report cards and Utah has a new law allow­ing ads on school buses. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s admin­is­tra­tion, strain­ing to fill a $600 mil­lion bud­get hole, is look­ing to raise $25 mil­lion from ads on city prop­erty — includ­ing bridges, elec­tri­cal stor­age boxes and garbage cans.

The effort kicked off this month with Bank of Amer­ica ads on the 81-year-old Wabash Avenue Bridge, which crosses the Chicago River and has appeared in movies includ­ing “About Last Night” and “The Dark Knight.”

“I think it’s dis­gust­ing,” Chicago res­i­dent Linda Rosen­thal said recently, shak­ing her head as she sur­veyed the signs. “The archi­tec­ture in Chicago is stun­ning. To see this awful adver­tise­ment angers me.”

The white ads with blue let­ter­ing and Bank of America’s logo are posted on lime­stone bridge ten­der houses, which hold the equip­ment used to raise the bridge when tall boats pass beneath. Bank of Amer­ica paid $4,500 to put seven signs on the bridge for about a month, said city spokes­woman Kath­leen Strand.

Strand promised the city’s new cam­paign will have “poli­cies to pro­tect the integrity of Chicago’s facade” and likened the ini­tia­tive to the Chicago Tran­sit Author­ity bring­ing in about $20 mil­lion annu­ally from abun­dant ads on buses and ele­vated trains that don’t seem to anger anybody.

“The munic­i­pal mar­ket­ing strat­egy is really about pur­su­ing inno­v­a­tive oppor­tu­ni­ties to avoid hav­ing to cut city ser­vices or increase the tax bur­den on Chicagoans,” Strand said.

Still, some ask where the line will be drawn. Could the city’s his­toric Water Tower be next? Or Grant Park’s famed Buck­ing­ham Fountain?

The city’s two major daily news­pa­pers have faced off with oppos­ing views. Chicago Tri­bune archi­tec­ture critic Blair Kamin called the bridge ads “a visual crime” and “a grotesque cheap­en­ing of the pub­lic realm.” A Chicago Sun-Times edi­to­r­ial said the ads, while unap­peal­ing, “beat going bust.”

Bank of Amer­ica spokes­woman Diane Wag­ner said the com­pany said yes when Chicago offi­cials asked if the bank wanted to adver­tise on the bridge because it’s a major employer and phil­an­thropic sup­porter in the city.

“We agreed to be the first com­pany to dis­play on the bridge because we want to help the city explore new rev­enue sources and we think this is an inno­v­a­tive way to gen­er­ate new rev­enue,” Wag­ner said.

Chicago adver­tis­ing pro­fes­sion­als doubt it was a smart move for either side.

“I have made my liv­ing in adver­tis­ing, but there has to be bet­ter ways to raise money,” said Tim Terchek, exec­u­tive cre­ative direc­tor of the Drucker Group ad firm. What’s more, the bridge ads could back­fire if pub­lic dis­gust sticks to the bank, he said.

Leo Bur­nett Company’s chief strat­egy offi­cer Stephen Hahn-Griffiths, whose office over­looks the bridge ads, said they are a blight.

“It’s like com­mer­cial graf­fiti,” Hahn-Griffiths said. “It makes no sense from a mar­ket­ing per­spec­tive and I ques­tion the intent of doing this because it does not seem like a smart decision.”

For­mer Mil­wau­kee Mayor John Norquist, pres­i­dent and CEO of the Chicago-based Con­gress for the New Urban­ism, sug­gested the city could instead rent out spaces like the City Hall lobby or library and cul­tural cen­ter the­aters for wed­dings and other events.

“Plac­ing adver­tis­ing on a city’s archi­tec­tural assets takes away from the pub­lic realm,” Norquist said.

Some offi­cials across the coun­try, and the world, are turn­ing to pri­vate money for pub­lic projects.

In Rome, an Ital­ian shoe com­pany founder has pledged to foot $34 mil­lion to restore the Colos­seum — the ancient arena black­ened by pol­lu­tion — and its founder has said the ges­ture could launch more pri­vate spon­sor­ship for pub­lic ben­e­fit in Italy. In Venice, Mayor Gior­gio Orsoni defended the use of pub­lic­ity on restora­tion of such projects as the famed Doges Palace, say­ing spon­sors’ con­tri­bu­tion allowed the work to be accelerated.

But Venice also has strict rules on the use of adver­tise­ments. Only 10 per­cent of an exposed facade can be cov­ered, and ads for cig­a­rettes, alco­hol and those fea­tur­ing nudity are banned.

Back in the U.S., a sub­ur­ban Salt Lake City school dis­trict plans to be Utah’s first to plas­ter its buses with adver­tise­ments in an effort to gen­er­ate addi­tional rev­enue with­out rais­ing taxes. While the ad rev­enue is expected to sup­ple­ment the Jor­dan School District’s bud­get, offi­cials said it won’t be enough to make up for the recent bud­get cuts.

It’s a sim­i­lar story in Golden, Colo., where Jef­fer­son County Pub­lic Schools’ report cards now fea­ture ads for the Col­legeIn­vest col­lege sav­ings pro­gram. The ads raise $30,000 a year.

“Par­ents under­stand where we are at with the fund­ing issues and most of the reac­tion has been pos­i­tive,” said school dis­trict spokes­woman Lorie Gillis.

Retiree Jim Phillips, who leads free tours of Chicago’s bridges, chal­lenged the city to chan­nel pub­lic curios­ity about the struc­tures into money-making ven­tures, such as charg­ing tourists to see the bridge houses’ inner workings.

“If it gets to the point adver­tise­ments go on more of these his­toric struc­tures, I don’t think there’s any way to stop them on oth­ers,” Phillips said. “What if you put a NASCAR suit on the Picasso? What if you slapped a Google sign on one of the lions at the Art Institute?”

Posted by AP News on Nov 22 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.