It’s comforting and somewhat amazing reviewing the many images generated weekly by our FotoFetch photographers to identify some of our industry’s “legacy” outdoor structures. Erected many decades ago they are still enjoying a healthy life, maintaining and generating income. They continue to offer advertising opportunities to generations of clients. Unlike antique B&W televisions or AM transistor radios from the 1960s that can no longer fully communicate to the public, our “classic” structures and venues to advertise OOH are still very relevant.
Posters and bulletins held up by telephone poles as foundations are still found throughout the US on state highways advertising wireless providers that in earlier years carried communications on similar poles connected to copper wires. Massive iron and steel railroad trestles have gazed at 100 years of consumers motoring underneath their outstretched displays advertising destinations no longer connected to their rails. The century’s old urban walls that may have displayed painted ads of miracle elixirs, today offer regional hospitals and health plans on their stretched vinyl murals. The rooftop erector set structures that overlook the cityscapes once advertised Hudsons and Studebakers, now gaze down bemused as occasional citizens quietly pass by on electric scooters and bikes. And let’s not forget those omnipresent two-sheet posters still clinging to those white tile walls in our nation’s oldest subway stations, elbowing for attention to the daily throng of commuters.
Times have certainly changed, but our OOH industry has managed to thrive. Yes, we are adapting to new materials and digital opportunities but recognizing that our legacy products are still performing as originally intended is something very few advertising mediums can brag about.
FotoFetch is an Advertiser with OOH Today