How Many Ways Are There To Advertise in Shanghai

I like watching boats sail by. The best spot for this is the Starbucks on the Pudong riverbank.
I fantasize where they go, where they’re going from and what it is like to spend 24/7 on limited square meters.

In Shanghai Outdoor and Indoor lcd and led advertising is Wild West. There don’t seem to be a lot of regulations or maybe nobody is enforcing them. Each possible surface, whether it’s moving or static is seen as a potential target.

Buses, subways (stations) and taxi’s have small lcd screens. Screens in elevators have 20 seconds to grab my attention, at least when it’s not too crowded. Shopping in the supermarket, I’m exposed to more screens in the supermarket, as if I wasn’t there already to buy.

On the ring road big led screens intend to distract the drivers with flashy ads. It’s one big experiment ( I’m sure I still left out some other forms, like gymnasiums, office buildings, hotels, banks, golf clubs, hospitals, and so on) and causes sound and vision pollution. On the other hand I like it that they dare to experiment no matter if it will proof to be effective or not.

Like I said, I was sitting next to the river when a boat with an immense plasma screen caught my eye. It sailed past me, turned in front of the Bund and spent the next hour just slowly moving up and down hindering the view of all the tourists spending their time on the Bund promenade. I wonder what’s next.

Some advertising numbers, courtesy 8 days magazine.

• Number of advertising companies in China: 72,610
• Money that ad agencies are spending on out-of-home advertising in China this year: ¥20 billion (about 10% of the total)
• Money that a large advertising agency will generate in revenue in a Chinese city: ¥80 million (compared with ¥1.6 billion in US)
• Revenue from advertising on CCTV in 2005: ¥8.6 billion
• Money that OLAY (the cosmetic company) spent on advertising in 2004: ¥4.7billion
• Money spent on advertising in China in 2005: ¥243.9 billion
• Revenue from advertising on the internet in China from May to July in 2006: ¥1.5 billion

Pictures: Ad in subway station - treasuresthouhast, Ad in subway -vampirex, Ad in bus - zygzs
Black & White photo -ZonaEuropa

     
Posted Tuesday, October 17th, 2006 at 10:16 am,
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