Posts about Advertising

A genuinely educational campaign could feature messages like "Never cross mid-block between two traffic lights" or "Come to full stop before turning right on red." The slogan "Stop for pedestrians at marked and unmarked crosswalks" would stimulate the public's curiosity, since few know about unmarked crosswalks (places where the pavement has none of the familiar crosswalk lines, but a crosswalk still legally exists, and drivers still must yield to pedestrians crossing the street).

Highway agencies recognize that education about pedestrian safety must accompany engineering and enforcement. But our region, especially outside the District and Arlington, has a spotty record in engineering and enforcement. That makes educating the public about pedestrian safety all that more important.

This photo by Theodor Horydczak (1890-1971), one of more than 14,000 photos of his available through the Library of Congress's American Memory series, captures Anacostia's iconic neon signage in January 1947.

Commercial neon lighting signage first appeared at a Paris barbershop a couple of years before the outbreak of World War I. The new signs, sometimes referred to as "liquid fire," arrived in the United States in 1923. From conversations with Anacostia residents and initial research, Anacostia's sign appears to date back to the early 1940s.

Anacostia's historic neon sign today. Photo by the author.

Images from StreetSmart.

The ads feature several warnings, such as "Get Real...Wait for the Walk" to "Watch for Bicyclists When Turning." But the defining feature in each image is that the car, not the pedestrian or cyclist, is the only injured party during a crash.

Image from StreetSmart.

Previous ad campaigns from the MWCOG have been particularly noteworthy. One launched in 2008 depicts a car violently hitting a person on foot. The ads were clearly meant to shock both drivers and pedestrians into being more aware of their surroundings in order to avoid collisions; they were so effective that I still remember them now, several years later.

The new ads, on the other hand, remind me of times as a kid when I accidentally fell while walking. My dad would ask, jokingly, if the sidewalk was hurt in the fall, which took my mind off a skinned knee or bruised arm. While I was just fine after a minor stumble, pedestrians and bicyclists hit by vehicles are not often so lucky.

Everyone should follow traffic safety laws, but the idea that it's only the car that gets damaged in a pedestrian accident defies logic. MWCOG's Street Smart program is an important one, and this iteration of ads could be substantially less effective than what the council has produced in the past.

Correction: The ads as listed on the StreetSmart website have yellow borders reading "A Giant Pedestrian (or Bicycle) Safety Problem." Several people pointed out that this should be considered part of the creative. I've updated the images to include that, and also show both versions of the pedestrian and bicycle ads with different taglines.

The stark, HD cinematography captured both the past glory and current struggle of a former U.S. manufacturing giant. Closing with the caption, "Imported from Detroit," the commercial took a stand. According to L.A. Times columnist Rick Rojas (as quoted in the Detroit Free Press), "Chrysler seems to say that Detroit isn't dead, and maybe the spirit of Americans making things isn't dead either."

While the goal of this blog isn't to ponder the future of auto manufacturing in the US, the underlying message of "coming home" to local manufacturing—and perhaps even increasing our export power—has now hit the mainstream, loud and clear.

Philadelphia has suffered from a decline in manufacturing along with other Rust Belt cities, and Diana Lind points out that today "the number of jobs requiring post-secondary education has grown, while more than 60 percent of Philadelphia's adults read at a sixth grade level or below, creating a miserable mismatch that leaves both employers and the unemployed in need."

Lind notes that blight and vacant lots are scattered across the city; Detroit has shown tremendous growth in urban agriculture as residents have cultivated green space, gardens, and farming out of once vacant parcels.

What Lind calls for, however, is a proactive land use and economic development plan: "...any plan to mitigate the vacant property crisis must not only include innovative urban planning, but also try to restore employment opportunities. We need to literally build jobs on neglected and undeveloped land."

Numerous programs interweave the issues of vacant property and unemployment, like the Job Opportunity Investment Network, West Philadelphia Skills Initiative, and Roots to Re-Entry. Though these, residents in Philadelphia are trained to attain levels of local employment that "help people leave poverty behind" while they remain in the community.

The potential to focus on economic development and education are two topics vital for those invested in cities to understand, not only in Detroit and Philadelphia, but also in the DC region. And we have the opportunity to create an even larger network by bringing local community colleges into the fold. It is on their campuses that many "green" jobs are born, and from where a great part of the foundation of our sustainable development focus may come.