A beer poster on a shop outside of Kigali

The most prevalent of these signs is the blue-hued Primus beer postings, which frequent the storefronts — usually tacked onto the side, next to the door. Their informal treatment makes their display feel compulsory — approximating how a NYC restaurant might treat a department of health certificate. In the western city, the arrangement of ads is much more careful…and even hierarchical (it wouldn’t be amiss to say that they are arranged by money more than they are arranged by people; i.e. the most visible positioning = the most expensive slot.)  In this context, dispassion in arrangement is reserved for the strictly obligatory: the no smoking sign, the choking safety poster, the restroom sign. Refreshingly, all signs seem to get the same treatment in Rwanda.

The Primus beer signs in Rwanda are a strange player here. The sole vestige of western ad aesthetics complete with logotype, spot colors, copyright notice (all alien in this agrarian culture) — they are also utilitarian objects, dutifully pointing to the beer. “The beer is HERE!” This indexical function is immediately at odds with the western advertising’s tendency to disembody the brand from the object. Oftentimes, a NYC billboard will advertise a product that is practically unattainable in terms of the reasonable logistic measures. (Those showy 2003 Target billboards come to mind: the company consumed Times Square with ads before a store was open anywhere near Manhattan…much to popular annoyance.) The Primus ads sit [logically] at the nexus of consumer and beer, brand and product.

How does such a practical arrangement of signage become the exception rather than the rule? Why do these beer signs seem so weird?? For a better answer than can be provided here, I recommend looking at Susan Sontag’s essay, Posters: Advertisement, Art, Political Artifact, Commodity. In this 1970 essay, Sontag examines the assorted postings that cover the western city — distinguishing between the advertisement poster and the public notice.  While “posters” historically arose out of the tradition of the public notice, she considers them notably distinct in “presupposing the modern concept of the public – in which members of society are defined as spectators or consumers.”  Posters actively compete for the consumer: “the values of the poster are first those of ‘appeal’, and only second of information” while public notices “inform” – ostensibly conveying the straight facts on good authority.  The beer posters share qualities of each communication method- straddling Sontag’s definitions (in utilitarian defiance of western ad usage.) Although meant to stimulate commerce (or at least enable it) Rwandan shopkeeps’ deadpan use of the posters to point to the beer makes them function like an informative public notice — the tone of the communication is more akin to signage than appeal. The proximity of the notice to the goods bridges the brand to a physical product. It is a public notice… one that happens to lack the expected civic dimension and instead points to beer.

We drive for miles through farm villages without any signage at all – not even beer posters.  At set intervals, a different type of signage emerges as a repeating motif. Sober reminders of the 1994 genocide appear on the side of the road – rendered in uniform block-lettered hand-painted type on standard white posts.  Each sign shows a pair of hands in repose with text that bears the general message of “Genocide: Never let it happen again” (as roughly translated by our driver.) Here is the proper, traditional public notice: the sign with a civic message to a country which has literally hit the reset button on what “civic” engagement means.

To say that Rwandans had no other choice is an understatement — the country’s lone museum, the Genocide Museum, chronicles the ruin of a nation in horrifying detail. However, to say that they’ve had no choice also undermines the immense philosophical and political accomplishments of the people. It is impressive — even to the casual observer. One instantly picks up on a sense of “mass cooperation”: drivers yield to cars and pedestrians, strangers engage in polite conversation, Kigali residents excitedly discuss the city’s planned projects as if they were their own. Our driver enthusiastically chats with us about education reform, family planning initiatives, rural housing planning, urban street planning, and the political empowerment of women. There is virtually no crime to speak of. Everyone — right up to the nation’s president— is required to sweep their street once a month. They have more women in their Parliament than Sweden. Fifteen years after hitting “reset”, Rwanda is a nation of people wholly dedicated to civic enrichment — they are busy designing their future through policy.

The genocide street signs stand as a reminder of this sentiment — the genocide was a beginning for unity, rather than an end. Rather than serving as an authoritative mandate from an aloof government, its interpretation emanates from the people. It is the people’s sign, a symbol of unity. This is a public-notice-as-monument — reminding Rwanda’s public of their accomplishments and setting the tone for the new generation. The sign’s deadpan format belies the over-arching convictions of a nation singularly fixated on the future.

A more western ad campaign inside the capital city of Kigali…for cooking oil

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However, spam is a much broader social phenomenon: it has leaked out of the inbox and into discussions of art and sociology. Largely a one-way communication system broadcasted from developing countries to the moneyed first world, spam misinterprets its [vaguely-defined] audience’s hopes, fears, and deepest/darkest desires, and indiscriminately spews this material back into our virtual lives.

Spamvisualization.net allows for the observation of spam’s inscrutably absurdist prose — all from a comfortable distance from your inbox. It operates on the premise that spam (when divorced from its primary role as unsolicited advertising) = interesting raw data = cool infographics. The site aggregates spam messages into a database and then analyzes their basic quantifiables (i.e.- what words appear and how often, how broad is the message’s distribution, etc.) The sanitized numbers generated from this survey can then be represented in bar graphs, charts, and bubble form.

The “wordscore” visualization, for example, reveals that “strong” is the most frequently occurring word in spam (which in html code parlance means “bold”) while “horse” is about midway down the list of frequently-occurring terms (and regrettably, possesses no html meaning.) The “quantitygrid” reveals the size/distribution of spam “campaigns” in the form of tasteful blobs, proportional to the size of the campaign. The spam represented by these anonymous orbs can easily be revealed upon rollover. A cursory survey of the bubble-landscape revealed advertisements for such unexpected products as “discount menopause gum” and “free sex tubes.” Nice!

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Photograph: Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters

Distributed yesterday morning to surprised NYC commuters, the paper replaced the oft frivolous Post content with imperative stories about climates change, while keeping all other elements equal. The idea was that Post readers do care about climate change (by virtue of their desire to remain both comfortable and alive), the paper just needs some assistance finding their greener voice. Generously, we were there to offer a helping hand — demonstrating how the Post could use their hallmark writing style and pun-ny headlines to tackle important environmental issues. Read all of the articles here.

The ads seek to remind consumers of the commonsense value of what they already have, rather than enticing them to buy anything new. Can you imagine the sheer brilliance of tap water — it is delicious, refreshing, and LITERALLY comes out of your faucet…and doesn’t cost $1.50 a pop! Can you think of a single earnestly advertised product that rivals tap water’s miraculousness??

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“For sale” realty signs are a familiar sight in post-real-estate-bubble Williamsburg. It was only a matter of time until some super clever ad exec co-opted this ubiquitous format for some good ol’ guerilla marketing. Well folks, that time has come. And the product for sale (a tv show which features Courtney Cox as a predatory “older” woman ) looks pretty ill-considered as well:

In a neighborhood already awash in actual foreclosure signs and vacant luxury condos, this is almost certainly meant to be a sick joke, right? Or else, borne out of some new type of cynical, afflicted optimism (“in sadness/opportunity,” “if lemons/lemonade,” etc.)? What will the neighbors think, after all?

In an interesting twist of unintentional comedy (or postmodern self-realization?), the content of the show follows a similar thematic trend:

Courtney Cox’s needy female protagonist [Is To] Sadness^TM

AS

Meaningless flings with young studs [Is To] Opportunity^TM

It is an “empowering!^TM ” analogy.

Very disappointing stuff, considering the dearth of middle-aged female characters on TV. I guess they were just waiting for the right demeaning stereotype to come along…

Will someone please call that 877 number and see if the place is really for sale?

Bonus: Funny banter on the subject of the confusing “pumas/cougars/mountain lions” thing by The Hater podcast.

Update: Following the recent Brownstoner post on the faux-real estate/faux-cougar ads, several commentators questioned the signs’ legality. The NYC Department of Buildings prohibits signs at residential addresses that advertise products unrelated to that address, but permits signs that “direct attention to a business at the same location as the sign.” In other words, a [legitimate] “For Sale, Call Realtor” sign is permissible, while leasing your yard to Verizon (so they can shave their logo into the grass) would be illegal. This-parody-of-the-real-thing is ultimately NOT the real thing would inevitably fall into the illegal advertising category. See NYC’s Outdoor Sign Guidelines and the city’s definition of “Advertising Signs” for more information.

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