This would be more effective if it wasn't hiding

Self-promotion billboard for Pattison Outdoor Advertising, Grandview Highway, Vancouver, BC

Self-promotion billboard for Pattison Outdoor Advertising, Grandview Highway, Vancouver, BC

I can understand the idea. Use unsold billboard space to promote the use of billboard space.

What I don't get is doing this on a billboard that is all but invisible for passers by. If your billboard, like the one below, depends on content on the left hand side of the sign to communicate the message, then people just won't get it.

(Source: http://www.inrixtraffic.com/wp-content/uploads/mcdonalds-billboard.jpg)

Place is one of the most critical factors in the successful use of out-of-home advertising. (See below)

(Source: http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/print/2009/8/mcdonalds_billboards_200m_197m.jpg)

So, Pattison may well be able to sell this billboard, but the media buyer should know what they are getting and match the message with the medium.

Self-promotion billboard for Pattison Outdoor Advertising, Grandview Highway, Vancouver, BC

Making a comparison that only works in Vancouver

Advertisement for Langara College, Vancouver City Centre SkyTrain station, Vancouver, BC

Everyone in Vancouver know that the price of real estate on the west side of the city is completely loopy. Teardowns are being sold for over $2 million dollars.

The house on the right in the illustration would probably sell for somewhere in the region of $3 to $4 million dollars.

On the other hand, many laneway houses are selling much closer to $1 million.

While most of the rest of Canada would view a $1 million  home as the height of opulence, on the west side of Vancouver $1 million would likely get you less that 1,000 square feet and no garden to speak of.

And without a post-secondary education your chances of even being able to afford the laneway house, or a more modest condominium, are very slim indeed.

Talking about the ingredients

Billboard adjacent to McDonald's location, Grandview Highway, Vancouver, BC

McDonald's is continuing in its campaign to make the most out of its Canadian ingredients. This billboard touts the input of Canadian beef farmers.

Do other fast food chains not use Canadian beef? It doesn't really matter. McDonald's has staked out the "Canadian Beef Farmers" territory as its own. Any other chain that touts it's local content will likely just be seem as copying McDonald's.

However, local wheat, lettuce, and tomatoes are all still available to claim.

Align that paper!

Sign at the bulk bins, Walmart, Vancouver, BC

Sign at the bulk bins, Walmart, Vancouver, BC (Detail)

I need to get better at taking sneaky photos that are better quality. But I think with this you get the point.

On this sign the bin number, "Bin 7244", has been partially cut off as the text was printed too high on the sign blank and runs into the red banner at the top of the sign.

Not a huge deal, but just another of those thousands of little things that separates a retailer that gets it from a store that just gets by.

McDonald's serves beasts

Order pick-up screen, McDonald's, Vancouver, BC

I wondered if this would happen. McDonald's has installed new self-serve order terminals. Each order is assigned a two digit number, prefixed with the number of the terminal. At this location one terminal was assigned the prefix "6".

And so I waited and finally saw order number "666". The biblical number of the beast.

I know that McDonald's food is not the healthiest in the world. I did not know that it came with a seal of approval from the antichrist.

Or perhaps the number is just a coincidence. Which do you think is more likely?

Building out the infrastructure, but just for some

Telus at work, Kitsilano, Vancouver, BC

Telus at work, Kitsilano, Vancouver, BC

One of the advantages of high population density is cheap infrastructure. Across Vancouver Telus is installing fibre optic service for its residential customers. The customer density makes this upgrade possible.

I live on a half-acre lot on a semi-rural island. As much as I would benefit from faster internet service, I can't see it happening for many years.

The infrastructure cost per customer is too high and the revenue is limited.

So, Telus customers in the city will get an upgrade, and I can't even get Telus service at all.

The promotion is better than the coffee

McCafe selfie glasses, McDonald's Vancouver, BC

McDonald's does promotion better than most other fast food firms.

Last week McDonald's was giving out free coffee and also handed out these cardboard glasses.

There is more to the coffee game than promotion, but for a chunk of the population a free cup and a post on social media is all it takes to bring people in the door.

Oh well, with luck one day those selfie takers will realize that there is a bit more to finding a good cup of coffee.

A nice term to trademark, too bad it's not yours.

Lexus billboard, Rupert and Grandview Highway, Vancouver, BC

A car that gives you goosebumps™. Sounds promising. It evokes thoughts of fast acceleration and snappy handling.

Too bad that the word goosebumps™ is already trademarked in Canada, and not by Lexus. Since 2001 it has been trademarked by Parachute Press for a "Series of children's suspense books."

So, not quite the image that Lexus is after. 

But on the bright side the Goosebumps™ books have been around since the early 1990s. The kids who read the books then are now in their prime Lexus buying years.

When it comes to an Internet connection, faster is always better

Telus billboard, Arbutus and Broadway, Vancouver, BC

Canada has a few problems with telecommunications service. The country is huge and the population is small. The majority of the population is concentrated in a few major centres hugging the US border. Canadians seem to enjoy travelling the huge distances between major centres and expect that they will be able to get the same mobile telephone service regardless of how far they are from the nearest town.

But in the big cities there services are pretty good. Internet speeds are certainly not up to South Korean standards, but on the whole they are tolerable.

The problem is that media consumption patterns have changed dramatically. No longer do we watch television on cable and send a few emails. Now a huge chunk of the population is watching Netflix and slowing down Internet service to a crawl.

While Internet service from Telus (the telephone company) is faster than that offered by Shaw (the cable TV provider), Telus' service is not available everywhere.

If I lived in Kits (a Vancouver neighbourhood), and didn't rely on conventional broadcast or cable TV for amusement, I'd be tempted to sign up and drop my TV service altogether.

The thing that frustrates me is that where I live lots of people have Telus fibre optic cable running right in front of their houses, but Telus won't offer faster fibre service. The fibre optic cable is there to provide fast service to more densely populated parts of the region. If I knew how to splice a fibre optic cable I might be tempted to try to tap in.

This firm wants me to slack off at work.

SHOEme.ca advertisement on SkyTrain, Vancouver, BC

SHOEme.ca advertisement on SkyTrain, Vancouver, BC (Detail)

Lots of employees goof around at work. A 2012 story revealed that 30% of the internet bandwidth at the JC Penney headquarters was consumed by employees watching videos on YouTube.

I wonder how SHOEme.ca would react to its employees using their working day to shop for books on Amazon or Indigo?