I Hated Billboards

Like, more than Scrooge hates Whoville. It all started when I was in school—a while ago—my professor had set up a field trip to visit a billboard company. To give us a taste of the ad profession. We drove 45 miles to what seemed like the middle of nowhere on a cold north Texas night, to what could only be described as an old warehouse. Nothing about it said advertising. Not to me. It wasn’t where Economist or Canadian Club Whiskey ads were thought up. There were no copies of Raygun lying around. It was cold. Milton-vintage corporate. Lumberg vibes. The art director that we visited didn’t seem enthusiastic about the work, either. Their office doubled as a vinyl storage closet. Their desk was piled high with so many vague briefs and revisions that I felt overwhelmed just looking at it—even before I could fully comprehend what I was looking at. I swore then and there, I would never, EVER, EVER, work in billboards. Fast forward a decade.

I swore then and there, I would never, EVER, EVER, work in billboards.

I still hated billboards.

I’d bounced around from in-house team to agency team, and back again.

Unsatisfied with the work I was doing at the time, I saw an ad for an art director at a billboard company—and the job poster seemed genuinely excited about the industry.

I was curious. Curious in the highway rubbernecking sense. I submitted my application and reluctantly agreed to an interview.

After a 45-minute call with two fiery creative directors, I managed to stay optimistic. Not because of what they were trying to do in service of the industry—raising the fucking bar—but because they acknowledged where the bar was. They were blunt. Their, or what came to be, our mission, wouldn’t be easy. Or glamorous. But it’d be worth it. No one was expecting much, especially at the local level.

I took the job. Invigorated by the challenge.

Because once I stepped past that unfair old narrative I’d been hauling around since school, I started to see something I didn’t think existed—people who cared. People who weren’t rolling over for the cheap, the lazy, the “good enough.”

I had been wrong. Wrong about the art director I’d met years ago. And wrong about the industry.

Wrong, the way you are when you mock tofu until someone hands you the perfect bite.

Wrong the way you are when you mock Taylor Swift for years, only to hear “Anti-Hero” for the first time and then willfully listen to it ten times more.

There ARE passionate professionals pushing for better craft, thinking, and stories. People willing to drag the medium, inch by inch, out of the ditch and into something worth looking at.

There are no undefeated seasons. No dominant performances. For every winning campaign, there could be 10 flops.

For every winning campaign, there could be 10 flops.

But that number will improve, showing that the industry is evolving and getting better, inspiring optimism among the audience.

It takes the stubborn, the hopeful, and those willing to get their hands dirty, polishing something everyone else has written off.

So yeah. I hated billboards.

But I don’t anymore.

And I’m grateful for the professionals who never stopped fighting for better, supporting the work, fostering appreciation, and progress in outdoor advertising.