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Take a moment on your next commute to consider the billboards you pass. Towering over highways and main streets, they advertise houses, burgers, and ammunition in ten-foot letters. They are a relentless visual monologue dominating our shared landscape. But these advertisements do more than just sell products—they collectively tell a story about what our community values. They shape the narrative of who we are and what matters to us.
This raises a critical question: What is the true cost of renting our shared visual space to the highest bidder?
Takeaway 1: Billboards Don’t Just Sell Products—They Sell a Value System
When the majority of public signs in a community promote realtors selling “dream homes,” gun shops advertising “freedom,” and fast food chains pushing “convenience,” a powerful narrative takes hold. While some argue this is simply the necessary engine of local commerce, it overlooks the cumulative social cost of ceding our entire visual commons to transactional messaging. This barrage of commercialism creates what sociologists call a “symbolic landscape,” where the most visible messages become the default indicators of social value. The collective message is clear: “You are what you buy.”
This constant stream of commercialism reinforces individualism, consumption, and competition as the primary measures of a successful life. Our public spaces, once potential bulletin boards for community care, are transformed into private platforms for profit. The unspoken lesson learned on every drive down Main Street is to buy, sell, and consume—but rarely to connect.
Marketing doesn’t just sell products — it teaches us what to value.
Takeaway 2: The Most Powerful Message Is the One That’s Missing
The “silent spaces” in our public advertising are just as telling as the ads themselves. Consider what is consistently absent from our billboards: the local animal sanctuary, the food bank, or support services for elderly neighbors. This absence doesn’t just happen; it is the outcome of a system that actively curates our public spaces, rendering community care invisible by default.
This creates a visual and psychological divide where visibility is equated with worth. The system suggests that if an organization cannot afford a massive advertising budget, its mission must not be important. This commercial noise overshadows the essential services that form the backbone of a caring community, reinforcing the idea that if something isn’t marketed, it must not matter.
“Our town’s story gets told by money, not by people.”
Takeaway 3: We’ve Been Conditioned to Reject “Compassion Advertising”
This absence is so pervasive that when we do encounter a message of community care in these spaces, the experience can be surprisingly jarring. Imagine seeing a billboard that reads, “Help a neighbor today.” For many, the reaction wouldn’t be inspiration, but a sense of discomfort. This counter-intuitive response reveals how deeply we have been conditioned to see our public spaces through a transactional lens.
Such a message disrupts the expected rhythm of advertising. It doesn’t promise personal gain, convenience, or a better lifestyle; instead, it calls for shared responsibility. Because we have been trained to see profit as the primary goal of public messaging, a billboard promoting kindness can feel alien. Some might even dismiss it as “political” or “guilt-based,” because our culture has trained us to equate caring with weakness or activism rather than simple humanity.
Takeaway 4: We Can Reclaim Our Public Spaces and “Market” Belonging
The solution is not to eliminate advertising but to reclaim a portion of our visual landscape to “market” empathy and connection. By consciously shifting the messages in our shared spaces, a community can begin to rewrite its own story. This shift can start with concrete, practical actions.
A community could begin this transformation by:
- Reserving a percentage of public ad space for non-profits, local farms, shelters, and mutual aid groups.
- Collaborating with local artists to create rotating public murals about kindness, resilience, and connection.
- Creating “community pride boards” that highlight volunteer opportunities alongside business specials.
The ultimate goal is to use these powerful tools to sell something that money can’t buy: a true sense of belonging.
Conclusion: Whose Story Are We Telling?
The messages that fill our shared spaces are not neutral background noise. They are the silent curriculum of our streets, teaching a daily lesson in commercial values over civic ones. By allowing profit to be the sole narrator of our community’s story, we risk eroding the very connections that make a town a home.
“Every billboard tells a story. The question is, whose story are we allowing to fill our streets?”
