5 ms·

There's also enormous pressure from the public to be able to find things, especially in the case of... you know, a McDonalds on the interstate with people drivi

There's also enormous pressure from the public to be able to find things, especially in the case of... you know, a McDonalds on the interstate with people driving by who are from the other side of the country. ;) I don't think most people have a problem with honest ads. The issue is the billboards that tell you "There's something amazing ahead!" and you pay $10 to get in and it's a stupid doll. Or the collections of a billion billboards for different things on a single building. Or the TV ads that use every trick in the book to try and manipulate you into buying a crappy product. Sadly businesses seem to be moving more and more towards "just spend all our money on marketing" rather than "just spend all our money on the product". (I'm looking at you, Plex.)

piperswe 5y ago
I think that logo signs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_sign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_sign) are sufficient for helping the public find things.
- jfrunyon 5y ago
  Agreed, although those aren't present in all states (or even at all exits within states that use them). Edit: actually... IDK. In some states they're just useless too (you get off the interstate and then you find the business that was on the sign is 10 miles down the road, away from the interstate). At least the "this far to <business>" and "this way to <business>" part on billboards is usually accurate ;)
  - Jtsummers 5y ago
    When I was driving around Maine I never saw a billboard (I assume banned) but they had little signs a bit bigger than a regular road-name sign that indicated in which direction various kinds of shops and restaurants would be with distances. Like a sign might point right and say "McDonald's 0.5 Miles ==>". It wasn't necessarily as good as a giant golden M visible from a mile or more away, but it was sufficient. I think the logo signs + small directional signs once you're off the highway would do a good job in most areas. Plus once you're on the main drags that hold most of these things you'll be hard pressed to miss them. It didn't take long to get used to looking for them when driving around either.

piperswe 5y ago

I think that logo signs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_sign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_sign) are sufficient for helping the public find things.

jfrunyon 5y ago
Agreed, although those aren't present in all states (or even at all exits within states that use them). Edit: actually... IDK. In some states they're just useless too (you get off the interstate and then you find the business that was on the sign is 10 miles down the road, away from the interstate). At least the "this far to <business>" and "this way to <business>" part on billboards is usually accurate ;)
- Jtsummers 5y ago
  When I was driving around Maine I never saw a billboard (I assume banned) but they had little signs a bit bigger than a regular road-name sign that indicated in which direction various kinds of shops and restaurants would be with distances. Like a sign might point right and say "McDonald's 0.5 Miles ==>". It wasn't necessarily as good as a giant golden M visible from a mile or more away, but it was sufficient. I think the logo signs + small directional signs once you're off the highway would do a good job in most areas. Plus once you're on the main drags that hold most of these things you'll be hard pressed to miss them. It didn't take long to get used to looking for them when driving around either.