Friday, October 20, 2006

The vilest of pollutants

























































Ask an environmentalist and he will talk chemical composition, vehicle exhaust, deforestation and more. But who's to question the pollution of the city's environs by advertisers?

Billboards, posters, wall paintings, gate signs, auto backs, bus panels, shop signs, leaflets, scooter seat covers, pole signs, beach signs, tree signs, this signs, that signs and everything else signs. It's nauseating.

Who is responsible? The advertisers who do it? Or the Government that allows them? Or is it the citizen who doesn't care?

But no matter where the buck stops, Chennai needs respite from this visual trash.


"As a private person, I have a passion for landscape, and I have never seen one improved by a billboard. Where every prospect pleases, man is at his vilest when he erects a billboard. When I retire from Madison Avenue, I am going to start a secret society of masked vigilantes who will travel around the world on silent motor bicycles, chopping down posters at the dark of the moon. How many juries will convict us when we are caught in these acts of beneficent citizenship?" David Ogilvy, Confessions of an Advertising Man, 1971





3 comments:

Vidya Varadarajan said...

Wow! I absolutely agree! You should start a petition to reduce the number of hoardings that have covered up Chennai's landscape. I would certainly sign.

Vidya

Slogan Murugan said...

Not bad for a semi literate country like ours...

charu said...

i totally agree...with all these unwanted piece of trash...important info that the needs to be conveyed to the people vanishes right before our eyes..