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Anyone NOT in the U.S., please answer a question for me!

CrimsonToker

CrimsonToker

Android Expert
Being born and raised in the same backwater mountain town, I have no concept of the outside world. One of the things that I dislike the most about America is how ad heavy everything is. Everything. From the moment we wake up in our own homes there is advertising around us, while driving, shopping, working. Every place I go, every time I turn my head, there is some commercial or advertising in sight. And I'm in a small town, it's immeasurably worse in a big city. It's even at the gas pumps now, a small video screen that only plays commercials while someone is pumping gas

And I wonder if other countries have to put up with this?
 
I'm in China, and that one icon of capitalism, the ad billboard, well we've got millions of them. Even seen Blade Runner? A dystopian future with towering video billboards everywhere, that also have constant sound and music, we have a lot of those as well, even have video billboard trucks that drive around the streets. So not only are the ads nearly always in sight, they're battering your ears as well, and constantly heard in your home as well if you're in the wrong place.


But then there's all the store PA ads as well...
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"GOOD NEWS! GOOD NEWS! JEANS 99 YUAN!, SHIRTS 59 YUAN!, BAGS 99 YUAN!"

in Mandarin obviously.....all day long.

My neighbourhood.... :thumbsupdroid:

I take it US laws DO NOT allow stores to put loud PAs out in the street to advertise what's for sale. I know the UK doesn't, has strict noise pollution laws.



Although large scale commercial advertising is something that's relatively new to the PRC, along with golf, chocolate, coffee and Mickey Mouse, before 1980 there just wasn't any.
 
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mike..

I would never go down that road again! it would give me a migraine.
I guess the problem is competition. if they are doing it.. you have to too.
otherwise customers only see (hear) them

was that dude carrying a man-purse? :P
 
Guess I got used to it. But I still remember my very first week, having a training course in Zhuhai. Hotel room overlooked a shopping street, in the background all day long and evening could hear a continuous loop of Gimme More - Britney Spears, voice-overed with the word "AYAYA" and other spiel in Mandarin, over and over again. Permanently imprinted in my mind. Will always be grateful to that beauty and cosmetics store called Ayaya. http://www.ayaya2.com/

Some students and friends have asked me, how did I manage to learn Chinese, told them by looking at and listening to advertisements. Which is actually partly true. LOL

Dudes with man-purses are an everyday sight in Asia, nothing effeminate. :p It's how they carry their personal things around, like oversized smart-phones, car and house keys, toilet paper, notebooks, bulging wallets, etc.

Do buses and subways in the US have video and sound ads on them for the passengers? So only way to get away from them is to shut your eyes and block your ears. The insides and outsides of buses, trams, trolleys, have been an advertising space for a century or more, the world over, Aircraft and taxis as well, often carry ads.
 
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It's far more relaxed in Europe. Only a hand full of screaming billboards (if any) and no lollipop boards along the highways' exits. Maybe here and there in the UK, since they share the American habit of locating a shopping center next to a highway.
Most is on site only: on the outside of a shop, or indoors.
But no videos with sound in stores.
Here in the Netherlands a shop owner in a city center needs permission (read: has to pay fee) for having advertisements hanging on the outside of his store. And if he uses a (standing) sandwich board on his pavement, it has to stay within 1.something meters from his wall so the blind and people in wheel chairs can have a free way.
Scandinavia is the most ad free zone I've ever been though.

Oh, and TV channels in Europe... Far less commercials. And none for lawyers and medication.
 
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@mikedt Not in Boston Massachusetts anyway. Lots of ad posters in the subways and the turnstiles are occasional wrapped to promote a product but so far no video with sound. Although they did have this one ad campaign that used small posters in the tunnel meant to be viewed while the trains are in motion which acted like flip cards giving you an animated ad,
 
Two adjacent jewellery stores, in competition with each other. Note the loudspeakers, one playing Britney Spears, other playing Lady Gaga, along with their ever repeating sales spiel.

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I hear that North Korea is rather commercial ad free. Just like China used to be in the 60s and 70s.
 
There are occasions when the ad billboards and kiosks are quiet and all is peaceful.
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If the wind is in the right direction, can hear it from the bedroom.


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...and Micro$oft gets their ads for free.
 
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Highways are for transport between cities. Stores are located where people live, not where they commute.
 
I was in Washington DC a few years back... driving around on the highways...
NO ads! no billboard!!! none!
you cant even see the stores signs! nothing is visible from the highway.
only signs are street/directional/traffic information.

so nice.. so clean...
but also dislocated to area. I did NOT know what was around me.. till I exited.
or used google maps.

driving around in texas.. everything was visible.
shops, gas stations, malls, billboards of all types.

but I am very happy to report.. NO sounds!!!!!!!!!
 
@mikedt

Kinda off topic, but I'm OP so w/e lol

Is what I've heard about China's pollution problem true? I've started hearing that some companies over there are selling canned air now. But that's straight out of Space Balls, that can't be true..
 
yes.. the pollution is true.. it is really really bad in major cities in china.

canned air? yeah I can see that..
in Japan.. they have air bars.. you sit and breath fresh air out of a hose.
 
I've never seen an air bar in Japan but I've wanted one during the cedar pollen season.

Post-WW II, vast tracts were replanted with cedar trees to prevent erosion and basically try to restore the greenery.


Imagine endless hilltops doing that. It's debilitating - you don't need a cedar allergy when it's bad, you'll choke to breathe. A lot of people wear surgical masks during the season to try to deal with it. I've been to heavily industrialization areas of Japan but to me, the cedar pollen is one of the worst things imaginable.

The acid rain in a lot of industrialized Asia is sickening. It's not like the PBS reports with the slow voices and gee, it's affecting forests and wildlife. It's like - get caught in a bad storm of that and count on throwing out your clothes, unless you're in to the Swiss cheese look. I've been to US plants where it's really bad - imagine a whole city that way.
 
GOOD NEWS! GOOD NEWS! SAMSUNG, APPLE, LENOVO, OPPO, HUAWEI, VIVO, ZTE, MEIZU, GOOD NEWS! GQOD NEWS! SAMSUNG, APPLE,.....
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That's an LED billboard on the left, has ten loudspeakers in it. It goes quiet at 10PM and starts up again at 7.30AM.

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The locals call this place "Mobile Phone Street", two blocks long and every store sells mobile phones.

It's the constant street noises that might tell a first timer to China, that they're no longer in Kansas, USA :D ...I was in London last year, and I did think, this place seems quiet.
 
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CrimsonToker said:
@mikedt

Kinda off topic, but I'm OP so w/e lol

Is what I've heard about China's pollution problem true? I've started hearing that some companies over there are selling canned air now. But that's straight out of Space Balls, that can't be true..
Click to expand...

It's certainly true about the pollution problem, especially cities like Beijing and Tianjin, too many dirty factories, too many cars. I've heard about the canned air for sale, but only what I read in the Huffington Post, so don't know how true or not. Many people do walk around wearing face masks, and sometimes gas masks.

Where I am, small city in Inner Mongoia, it's actually very clean and fresh, sky is blue, the sun shines and the grass is green. Bitterly cold in the winter, -30C often. One reason why I chose this city, Xilinhot. It's quite affluent and has tourism. There is some rather large, coal drift mining goes on though, and there's oil here as well. But no large factories and not many cars, and quite sparsely populated. The Xilin Gol prefecture area is larger than England, but only has something like half million people.

Who wants one of my handbills?
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CrimsonToker said:
From the moment we wake up in our own homes there is advertising around us, while driving, shopping, working [...] I wonder if other countries have to put up with this?
Click to expand...

There's no shortage of advertising here in the UK, but tbh after all this time it pretty much passes me by. The photographer in me remembers a striking image but the consumer in me rarely notices what it is supposed to persuade me to buy. :)
 
I remember my favorite fast food chain in the Philippines, MangInasal. They have TV's everywhere inside that play their own advertisements on loop.

This is one of the gems.

 
mikedt said:
It's certainly true about the pollution problem, especially cities like Beijing and Tianjin, too many dirty factories, too many cars. I've heard about the canned air for sale, but only what I read in the Huffington Post, so don't know how true or not. Many people do walk around wearing face masks, and sometimes gas masks.
Click to expand...
I read the other week that Dehli's air quality had been measured to be worse than Beijing's.

There's too much advertising in the UK, but in my experience it's worse in the States. I've always taught my kids that the trick is not to notice or remember what it is actually advertising (a feat that Slug has got sussed).
 
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