A New Low In Obnoxious Advertising

One of those obnoxious ads in the waters off lower Manhattan

As anybody who knows me realizes, I have no patience for the desperate, loud, constant barrage of advertising.

It's possible to make advertising that is engaging, entertaining and makes you want to buy their products. That concept is rare, though, as most advertisers seem more intent on insulting us, rathern than engaging us.

Most advertisers seem to think the more you annoy us, the more likely we are to buy their wares. I have not gotten anyone to explain how that works, if it does.

A new low in advertising has come on the waters of the Hudson and East rivers surrounding the big lights of Manhattan.  Barges now ply those waters with obnoxious LED billboards. As the New York Daily News reports:

"The city filed a lawsuit Wednesday aimed at sinking the billboard-carrying barges that float on New York waterways.

City attorneys write that the company behind the LED advertisements, Ballyhoo Media, has brazenly disregarded requests to dock the barges because they are a public nuisance, distract drivers and violate zoning regulations."

I can see why New York City officials are exasperated with these barges. As New York City Councilman Justin Brannon said in the Daily News:  "At a time when every square inch of our world feels like it's covered in advertisements, visual pollution is a real thing, and our waterways should be off-limits. Drivers along the water don't need more distractions and when kids in Bay Ridge go to Shore Road Park, they don't need to be barraged by flashing lights advertising the latest video game."

True, a big city like New York has plenty of bright lights and advertising. It's turned Times Square into one of the biggest tourist attractions in the world.

But the advertising like that doesn't have to be everywhere. That's why Manhattan has both the dazzling advertising lights of Times Square, and the relative quiet and trees and lawns of Central Park.

However, plenty of advertisers and ad agencies think they must blind and deafen us constantly, because that way we'll buy, buy.  Ballyhoo Media, the company behind these obnoxious floating barge billboards is one of those.

The website for Ballyhoo Media was interestingly down for maintenance Wednesday and Thursday, which is interesting.

Infuriatingly, Ballyhoo Media might still get away this. The company pulled the same stunt in Miami Beach. The Florida city tried banning the advertising barges, but Ballyhoo successfully argued that Miami Beach doesn't have jurisdiction over the water, so their awful visual pollution remains.

Ballyhoo is likely to make the same argument in New York.

The Miami New Times said Adam Shapiro, owner of Ballyhoo, gave this spin on how supposedly great these floating advertising barges are. Shapiro said the barges are a quicker way to reach customers and make announcements. He pointed out there have always been advertisements at the beach.

Well, yeah. You can go up to the boardwalk and look at all the advertisements you want, or you could turn around and have an uncluttered view of the water. You have a choice. Ballyhoo Media wants to take away that choice.

Shapiro made the same argument, that his company is just wonderful, in response to the New York lawsuit. Talk about gall and gaslighting with this statement!

"We love the waterways and have developed this platform to be an asset to the community.....Ballyhoo has proven to provide unique, one-of-a-kind experiences that has been received with overwhelmingly positive community support. We are confident that New York City will see the value and excitement we bring to the waterfront."

I hate to break it to him, but the yelling and screaming Shapiro is hearing is not "positive community support," it's community rage.  But enjoy your delusions, sir.

Unfortunately, this will only get worse. We've probably been sentenced to dozens of these companies clogging beautiful waterways, along with lake and ocean front tourist spots with these outrageous LED ads.

Want to give up on the beaches because of this and stargaze instead? Looks like you're going to be out of luck there, too.

As Astronomy.com and other media outlets have reported, a Russian startup called StartRocket wants to put billboard advertising in space, because apparently, stars and planets are ugly but advertisements  in the sky for chicken wings and cola are majestic.

Astronomy.com describes this hellish idea: "Imagine this: you've just fled from the city to your nearest national park to gaze deeply into the infinite abysss of space and contemplate how your own existence fits into the curtain of the universe. Then out of the corner of your eye, you see brigh white letters spelling "KFC" spring across the horizon in a long arch."

Yeah, lovely.

It seems that advertising company executives are so full of themselves that they will believe any branding about themselves that they imagine. It can't even enter their mind that almost all of the rest of us think they're obnoxious. The guy with the ads in space idea, Valadilen Sitnikov says this: "It's human nature to advertise everything... Brands are a beautiful part of humankind."

Really?

I once read a short story where everybody in the nation was forced to view advertising every waking hour through some sort of hologram that everybody was required to operate.

It doesn't seem like we're that far from that horrible dystopian life.