Mobile billboards.
Diesel spewing trucks with no purpose but to advertise whatever is printed on the side. What do you think of them? Everyone has seen them. Some of us, in the ad biz, have actually designed them, recommended them to clients, and been responsible for them being on the road. For that, we’re sorry… maybe.

At a glance these things seem to represent all that is evil about the advertising business. They clog traffic, they block our view, they pollute the environment and they have no function but to put a brand name smack in front of our face as we simply try to get from point a to point b. On the other hand, sometimes this media is used brilliantly. Ikea, for example did a glass-sided truck that showed people living in beautiful Ikea environments. It was smart, engaging and certainly attention-getting. Of course, one could argue that the Ikea installation is hardly just a mobile billboard, but something much bigger. Perhaps that puts it into a different category, or perhaps it just lifts it above the scornful glances of those who hate mobile billboards.

Maybe that’s the challenge. Maybe quality, innovation and creativity should have each mobile incarnation judged seperately, on its own merit. If you knock it out of the park then polluting and adding to traffic is okay, but if you’re simply slapping your discount furniture store logo on the side of a rumbling Volvo flatbed, you’re just phoning it in and being part of the problem.

As an ad agency, we probably wouldn’t jump to suggest this media to our clients. Then again, if the medium offered a brilliant, innnovative and memorable solution… why not? After all, aren’t we ad folk going to fry anyway?