SF is always on the brink of death from one thing or another. Has to be the most melodramatic populace in America. I’ve lived here for 13 years, my wife for 20. It’s the same as always.
We saw a Sees Candies : No AI needed billboard yesterday. Thought that was funny.
"Killing SF" is overly dramatic, and others have noted that the phenomenon observed here is not unique to AI, or SF.
But there is something a little...alienating about advertising that's not meant for you.
It's a dumb example, but in Pittsburgh the football stadium was renamed from Heinz Field to Acrisure Stadium.
Of course, "Three Rivers Stadium", the name of the previous building, was best. It's not a name that tries to sell you something. But if you must sell something, "Heinz" is extremely good: it sells products for everyone, and it has historical roots in the area. Of the people, for the people.
But Acrisure? I've looked it up a few times and I still can't remember exactly what it is. Business services or insurance or something like that. And I'm sure that both Acrisure and the Steelers don't really care that I don't know what it is, because it's not really for the vast majority of the 65,000 people who show up on a Sunday to cheer for the team.
I feel like SF has been full of frequently inscrutable billboards as long as I’ve been coming here — at least a decade.
It’s maybe got slightly more extreme recently, with an even larger percentage of them being inscrutable to me as someone who both works in tech and has a decent grasp of current industry trends.
I’ve never really got it — if even I don’t know what you’re advertising (or often, who is advertising!), how does this help your sales?
In the SF tech scene they talk about this -- startups say they will put up a billboard for one CTO.
I don't even think that's an exaggeration. I watched a YouTube video about a startup that wanted to land a major client, figured out the CTO's commute, and put up billboards along the way.
Then they called the guy and he told them "I see your ads everywhere." They had an in.
The economics likely make sense when a contract is easily worth tens of millions of dollars. They're trying to create the perception that they're established in the mind of one person.
Keep in mind that marketing is not just trying to teach you about someone you're unaware of, but is also in part about assuring you (and your boss) that you're about to make the right choice when their sales team is already talking to you, and even in part about ensuring that you (and your boss) continue to feel confident that you did make the right choice (or alternatively make you have doubts about having picked the competitor) after you made the buy.
Making their sales peoples job easier, in particular, can be a lot cheaper than getting the marketing on its own to sell someone on you. They want you to go "oh, yes, FooBar Inc, I recognise that name" instead of your reaction being "who?!?".
A lot of marketing without calls to action fall in the latter two categories. In that case they don't need to tell you who they are. They just need you to notice that they're there enough that they seem like a player that is a good choice. You don't even necessarily want to come across as caring too much about explaining who you are - you just want to portray the silent confidence of someone buyers should already know.
(I have no idea whether the specific billboards you're talking about succeed at this)
I sort of look at it as putting a flag on the moon. Billboards are how tech companies claim ownership of SF and the tech sphere, any consumer influence is incidental.
I remember seeing an advertising exec talk about spending more money in the area the execs lived so they felt the impact of the advertising, regardless of how effective the spend actually was. This is likely more of the same - making the investors and C-Suite get warm fuzzies.
I saw the band Chat Pile a while back in Los Angeles. They played the previous night in San Francisco — their singer mentioned the billboards and led the crowd in an ethusiastic chant of "F*k AI!".
It's more of a tragedy of the commons. There are so many AI billboards in SF that I legitimately can't differentiate any of the AI startups anymore, and that's even if they say what their product actually is.
If you drive through Las Vegas, all the billboards are about casinos. If you drive through farm country, all the billboards are about the local cash crop.
Advertisers target the people likely to see the ad and spend money on the topic. Billboards are extremely geographically restricted, so local interest dominates. This isn't really news.
The issue is that in most cities, most people are involved in the major industry or know people who are. Casino dealers, farm workers, etc.
But there aren't very many blue collar tech jobs beyond security and the cafeterias. It undoubtedly feels like an invasive species for much of the lower middle class, who's been here longer than the tech workers.
They’re tacky, but I appreciate how clearly it homogenizes what is being pitched globally as some unique thing that only a few big companies do, or that it’s magic. Like the other thread on Vegas casino adverts… It’s big, it’s annoying, and if they’re going to survive (casinos get demolished/sold/bankrupted), lasting differentiation requires more than just sparkly lights, an AI feature, and a VC-subsidized advertising budget.
It doesn't sound like it used to be any better. Maybe we don't need to complain about AI destroying things that already sucked, like billboards or Linkedin.
Hard for me to get too upset about billboards in an urban environment, let alone if they're promoting sugar water or some dumb AI service. Let them waste their money.
While you can generally restrict new ones, you can't eliminate existing ones without basically paying out the lost revenue+etc to whoever is running it.
There's been a moratorium on new billboards in SF for a long time already. No new ones are getting built. Given the reliable revenue they provide, will be a long time before they naturally go extinct.
I remember when I was young and every billboard in SF was some stupid web 2.0 startup, or SaaS, or Crypto Shitcoins. Now we're plagued with AI billboards and the world is ending!
At least I could usually tell what a web 2.0 company actually did. With AI nearly being a commodity at this point, AI billboards are like seeing ads for different brands of table salt.
SF is always on the brink of death from one thing or another. Has to be the most melodramatic populace in America. I’ve lived here for 13 years, my wife for 20. It’s the same as always.
We saw a Sees Candies : No AI needed billboard yesterday. Thought that was funny.
"Killing SF" is overly dramatic, and others have noted that the phenomenon observed here is not unique to AI, or SF.
But there is something a little...alienating about advertising that's not meant for you.
It's a dumb example, but in Pittsburgh the football stadium was renamed from Heinz Field to Acrisure Stadium.
Of course, "Three Rivers Stadium", the name of the previous building, was best. It's not a name that tries to sell you something. But if you must sell something, "Heinz" is extremely good: it sells products for everyone, and it has historical roots in the area. Of the people, for the people.
But Acrisure? I've looked it up a few times and I still can't remember exactly what it is. Business services or insurance or something like that. And I'm sure that both Acrisure and the Steelers don't really care that I don't know what it is, because it's not really for the vast majority of the 65,000 people who show up on a Sunday to cheer for the team.
That's...weird.
I think it's related to the K shaped economy. The country is no longer being built for the middle class, which is concerning.
I feel like SF has been full of frequently inscrutable billboards as long as I’ve been coming here — at least a decade.
It’s maybe got slightly more extreme recently, with an even larger percentage of them being inscrutable to me as someone who both works in tech and has a decent grasp of current industry trends.
I’ve never really got it — if even I don’t know what you’re advertising (or often, who is advertising!), how does this help your sales?
In the SF tech scene they talk about this -- startups say they will put up a billboard for one CTO.
I don't even think that's an exaggeration. I watched a YouTube video about a startup that wanted to land a major client, figured out the CTO's commute, and put up billboards along the way.
Then they called the guy and he told them "I see your ads everywhere." They had an in.
The economics likely make sense when a contract is easily worth tens of millions of dollars. They're trying to create the perception that they're established in the mind of one person.
Keep in mind that marketing is not just trying to teach you about someone you're unaware of, but is also in part about assuring you (and your boss) that you're about to make the right choice when their sales team is already talking to you, and even in part about ensuring that you (and your boss) continue to feel confident that you did make the right choice (or alternatively make you have doubts about having picked the competitor) after you made the buy.
Making their sales peoples job easier, in particular, can be a lot cheaper than getting the marketing on its own to sell someone on you. They want you to go "oh, yes, FooBar Inc, I recognise that name" instead of your reaction being "who?!?".
A lot of marketing without calls to action fall in the latter two categories. In that case they don't need to tell you who they are. They just need you to notice that they're there enough that they seem like a player that is a good choice. You don't even necessarily want to come across as caring too much about explaining who you are - you just want to portray the silent confidence of someone buyers should already know.
(I have no idea whether the specific billboards you're talking about succeed at this)
I sort of look at it as putting a flag on the moon. Billboards are how tech companies claim ownership of SF and the tech sphere, any consumer influence is incidental.
I remember seeing an advertising exec talk about spending more money in the area the execs lived so they felt the impact of the advertising, regardless of how effective the spend actually was. This is likely more of the same - making the investors and C-Suite get warm fuzzies.
More ego than practical.
I think we should ban all billboards. We deserve as a species to have spaces where we are not being advertised to.
[delayed]
Muir Woods is right there.
Right, we could put ads there too. Who's working on this?
I saw the band Chat Pile a while back in Los Angeles. They played the previous night in San Francisco — their singer mentioned the billboards and led the crowd in an ethusiastic chant of "F*k AI!".
I didn’t ever expect to see Chat Pile mentioned here. Their music captures this sentiment perfectly though.
Great performers, great band
It's more of a tragedy of the commons. There are so many AI billboards in SF that I legitimately can't differentiate any of the AI startups anymore, and that's even if they say what their product actually is.
Bold of you to assume they actually have products ;)
If you drive through Las Vegas, all the billboards are about casinos. If you drive through farm country, all the billboards are about the local cash crop.
Advertisers target the people likely to see the ad and spend money on the topic. Billboards are extremely geographically restricted, so local interest dominates. This isn't really news.
And yes, they are annoying.
The issue is that in most cities, most people are involved in the major industry or know people who are. Casino dealers, farm workers, etc.
But there aren't very many blue collar tech jobs beyond security and the cafeterias. It undoubtedly feels like an invasive species for much of the lower middle class, who's been here longer than the tech workers.
The most fun one is the Metro stations near the Pentagon, where often the ads will be for fighter jet engine upgrades.
They must work, because they're buying the ad space for about three relevant people.
They’re tacky, but I appreciate how clearly it homogenizes what is being pitched globally as some unique thing that only a few big companies do, or that it’s magic. Like the other thread on Vegas casino adverts… It’s big, it’s annoying, and if they’re going to survive (casinos get demolished/sold/bankrupted), lasting differentiation requires more than just sparkly lights, an AI feature, and a VC-subsidized advertising budget.
I haven't live there since 2020, but before that it was all various SaaS and data pipeline related billboards.
It doesn't sound like it used to be any better. Maybe we don't need to complain about AI destroying things that already sucked, like billboards or Linkedin.
And at the turn of the century it was all about dot coms.
Ads are influencing us to buy things we don't need! This is terrible!
[Billboards stop targeting you at all.]
Ads no longer influence us to buy things we don't need! This is terrible!
Just take the win.
Hard for me to get too upset about billboards in an urban environment, let alone if they're promoting sugar water or some dumb AI service. Let them waste their money.
Advertising should be banned. It's an attack on the mind.
You can't in california, actually.
While you can generally restrict new ones, you can't eliminate existing ones without basically paying out the lost revenue+etc to whoever is running it.
Ban new ones and that will naturally go extinct
There's been a moratorium on new billboards in SF for a long time already. No new ones are getting built. Given the reliable revenue they provide, will be a long time before they naturally go extinct.
What if we got a proposition that said we have to take them all down and not pay for lost revenue?
I remember when I was young and every billboard in SF was some stupid web 2.0 startup, or SaaS, or Crypto Shitcoins. Now we're plagued with AI billboards and the world is ending!
At least I could usually tell what a web 2.0 company actually did. With AI nearly being a commodity at this point, AI billboards are like seeing ads for different brands of table salt.
There are a lot of Monaco billboards up now which made me laugh.
I absolutely love tech related billboards in SF Bay Area, nothing screams Silicon Valley more than those.
Try this:
Do the exact opposite of what the majority of the "AI billboards" are saying.
Job done.